As Joe G. shared this morning, and as most of you probably know by now, Tony Snow has died. He was 53.
I’m 43. When Tony was my age, if he’d known he had 10 years left, would he have done anything differently? If I could look in to the future and know the date of my death, would I do anything differently? Would I work less, spend more time with my family? Would I stop getting up at 5 a.m. during the week to sneak in my 30-minute workout just so I can stop gaining weight at an exponential pace?
Would any of us change?
I know it’s terribly predictable to ask these questions when a relatively young man dies, and probably trite to ask them in print. But this is what I do when I read about death, especially death before the age of 70-plus. (When I’m 60, if I live that long, I’m sure the threshold will be 80-plus or more.)
So, fine. Maybe it’s predictable; maybe it’s trite. But in the end, I think it’s also healthy to ask these questions — if, for nothing else, than the impact they might have on the handful of people who might seriously consider them … and then stop … and then try to relax (a little) and laugh (a lot) more than they do now.