Volume 2, Issue 27

When he heard this, his mind immediately accelerated. In the space of a breath before saying anything to the doctor, he experienced:

1. A seemingly irrelevant thought about his rival at work;
    
2. Realization that he no longer cared a whit about that rivalry, in light of his new fate;
    
3. Insight that the rivalry was always at least equally his own fault for placing too much ego-driven emphasis on petty things;
    
4. Insight that he did not want to be petty, and yet had let himself be petty at least several times daily over such concerns as rivalries, feuds, fears, envies, saving face, and the panoply of vanities;
    
5. Realization that it was this new perspective on Time that had geared up his inner concentration to a level he had never experienced before, which instantly made ego things easily dispensed with.

The good news was that he would be strong right up until the last few weeks. That meant he could accomplish whatever he had always wanted to do in the last months of his life, or, as he laughed wryly to himself, “Die tryin’.”

He was alone in his car driving back from the doctor. He marveled at how fast and clearly his mind seemed to be working. So many trivial things that seemed important before had dropped away without an argument. His mind was sharply focused on his highest priorities. Realizing this, he thanked the Upper Light for doing it this way to him. He had lived a fun life up to now and if it was his time to be taken, he felt strongly there would be an afterlife and life eternal. He flashed on how seeing the way he faced death would help his family and those who knew him to open their minds about death.

He saw that it would not be compassionate to spend his last days doing a bucket list, or anything selfish like that. What should he do — what did he want to do — with his last days?

What he wound up doing was having a lot of one-on-one conversations and fun parties. The conversations would be the last so they never devolved into trivia. He said what he had always wanted to say to that person. After the tears, his family listened without boredom, first out of respect and then out of love and finally because they were getting good ideas for themselves from what he was saying, despite his occasional ramblings, from which he always brought himself back.

He envisioned the ways his industry could evolve in positive directions in the years ahead and he gave unsolicited advice to many of the leaders in the field. If it all came out the way he saw it, there would be more counterspecialization across competing companies in a major sector, which would lead to a consolidation of complementary entities later on.

He took up painting again and did other things compassionate to himself. When his wife found him and saw that he had passed away, he was sitting up, his eyes open, and a smile on his face as if seeing something awesome.

Best to all,

Bill