What Did he Say?

“It is either one of two things. Either you are bleeding eternally or you are dying,” the doctor told me.

I thought it funny how the nurses kept coming in and checking on me every fifteen minutes. They kept commenting on how I must be a marathon runner and how I had such low blood pressure. After all I was just feeling tired, you know overworked, not enough time off, meeting my obligations and scared to death to fail, literally.

It had been two months since I started this new job. This was a chance of a lifetime. I was fulfilling my destiny and my family name. Failure was not an option. If it took eighteen hour days so be it. I had too much too learn in too little time and the train wouldn’t stop and wait for me. It didn’t matter I lost twenty pounds in two months. There just wasn’t enough time to eat. Lucky, I was young.

What did he say?

Right, I must be dying, I knew I wasn’t bleeding to death. So I asked him, “What’s the cure?” He said simply, two words, “Slow down.”

Right. I needed to change my ways. I had a wonderful wife, two beautiful little girls and a great house. Most of what anyone would say you need but I didn’t have the success I demanded. I knew my great life could wait while I built my success, brick by brick and crushing all obstacles. Life was too short to wait and I had to have it now. My great life could wait.

What did he say?

Right.

I changed.

Mine was a life or death situation but isn’t everyone’s. Don’t the lucky realize sooner or later they must change or else. Yes, you can go on living without changing but are you really? What is a life without meeting its full potential? I mean all of life and not just part of it such as career or family or personally. I mean all parts together, complementing and enhancing each other. Striving to make all we do as an expression of the fulfillment of life as a whole. Realizing continued learning, seeking improvement in one’s self and situation is not only the process but the means to the end.