The "dash"

First, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who sent e-mails, texts, notes, phone calls, tweets, facebook messages and any other form of communcation that we're using these days to express condolences. It really meant a lot to me to have such a great group of friends and family.

One final note - at my Grandfather's funeral the pastor mentioned something I hadn't thought of previously. When you look at a tombstone, there's a lot of information on there (name, hometown, date of birth, date of death) and he brought up an interesting point - a person doesn't get to choose his/her name, hometown, date of birth/death, there's only one piece of information that's typically printed on a tombstone that's within the control of the person it belongs to, that's the dash ("-") between the year that person is born and the year they died. In part, it makes you realize that there are a lot of aspects of life that are completely out of your control and there are aspects that are 100% within your control. Then, there's a gray area where the right decisions given the right circumstance presents an outcome that could have been vastly different otherwise. I had a baseball coach once that told me once 85% of life is just showing up on time and seeing what's going to happen (which was hugely helpful when I was going to grad school using the "just keep showing up" motto). However, that other 15% of life is a pretty crucial piece. One of the lessons I learned from my grandfather was that you don't always get to choose the challenges that you are faced with, but you always get to choose how you react to those challenges. Perhaps successful people are successful in part because they're better at compartmentalizing what's in their control and what isn't. I'm probably not making much sense with this nonsensical rambling, so I'll wrap it up...I guess the main philosophical point that I took away from the pastor's speech that day is this - don't waste time and energy on the things you can't control, but instead focus on making the most of your "dash". Easy to say I guess, but something to think about...