Day 38- Will it be important a year from now

DSTSS suggests that when you are getting all worked up over something to take a step back and ask yourself if this will matter a year from now. If not, relax.

I remember the fist time that I read this book, I really liked this suggestion. Will it matter a year from now if someone cut me off today? Nah. Then why not let it go?

As I was writing this post, I hit a sort of writer's block. I thought, okay, what else needs to be said about this? I decided to Google Richard Carlson and find out a little bit about him. I am ashamed to say that I didn't realize that, like Pausch, he is deceased. Whereas Pausch new he was dying of cancer and had months to prepare and say his goodbyes, Carlson suffered a pulmonary embolism on a flight and died without warning. Pausch left behind a wife and three children while Carlson left behind a wife and two daughters.

I have to wonder, did Carlson practice what he preached? I truly hope so. I hope that his last days in life were those of appreciation for the things he had going for him: a successful career, NYTimes Bestsellers, but mostly a family who loved him.

Carlson's wife, Kris, went on to publish "An Hour to Live, An Hour to Love," an extended love letter by her deceased husband. This book focuses on what you would do if you only had an hour to live. What would you do? What would you say to the people you love? The book "shows the importance of treasuring each day as the incredible gift it is." I guarantee you that if Kris and Richard got to live his last day over again-December 13, 2006-they would not worry about things that would not be important a year from then.

I need to begin to focus on things that matter. The things that matter. The things that matter. I hope that in addition to pushing aside "small stuff," Richard Carlson also knew God. I hope he was a believer. That isn't small & it does matter a year from now.

-God, help me to focus on the things that really matter: love, salvation, worship, faith. Help me to push the unimportant things to the side where they belong. Help me to concentrate on things that will be important a year from now, things that will continue to build up my family and yours. Amen.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Kris Carlson

Addendum: I found this out while obsessing over this newfound information. I am so happy that Carlson did this. From Publisher's Weekly via Amazon:

On their 18th wedding anniversary, in 2003, Richard Carlson (author of the bestselling Don't Sweat the Small Stuff) presented his wife, Kristine, with a short manuscript called An Hour to Live. He imagines he has an hour to live and poses questions originally asked by spiritual guide and author Stephen Levine: whom would you call? what would you say? and why are you waiting? Uncannily, the text foreshadowed Carlson's death three years later, at age 45, of a pulmonary embolism. Though he had no chance to make that last phone call, his wife (and the reader) already knows his feelings for her and their children. We also know what was important to him, which boils down to the old chestnut: no one, on their deathbed, ever wishes they'd spent more time at the office.