A Time Lesson From Kobe

There are only two days you cannot control: The day you are born and the day you die. Everything in between is the result of your choices -Odu Ifa (Paraphrased). I'm not gonna lie and say thet Kobe was a huge influence on my life and I'm shook up and all of that. He wasn't. That doesn't mean that his untimely death does not have an impact. When people who are young pass away it always gets my attention. Usually, these deaths are either due to violence or avoidable health issues. That Bryant had to go in such a tragic way reminded me of a mental change I had about 2 years ago. And it started with this video:

Same video, different time:

The part that got me: "no you don't have 8 years with them, you have 16 times with them." This made me look at my life and relationships a lot differently. I'm at a point in my life that, based on statistics, I have more life behind me than ahead of me. Time seems to go faster simply because I have so much time in the rearview. So now most mornings, I wake up before the alarm goes off. If I am awakened by the alarm, I no longer hit the snooze. I don't go over to the sofa and sleep another 10 minutes. If I don't have a run scheduled, I walk at 7AM for an hour. A lot of time if I'm sitting doing nothing, I'll ask myself, is this really what you want to do with your time? Is this the best you can do with your time? Must you watch that re-run?

I hope that prior to Kobe's tragic death, he was taking advantage of his time. Most don't come to the time realization in their early 40s but many do. And this is a very large lesson I hope that people gather from this tragedy: How are you spending your time. Are you spending it with people you love or are you in a routine just trying to get the day to end? I submit to you that living to "get to the end of the day" is not what you should be doing. It is better that Kobe died while trying to have quality time with the people he loved, than sitting at home watching TV alone, waiting to [physically] die.

The last thing I want to add here is about Kobe's rape allegation. No, don't go rolling your eyes. Let's assume that he did what he was accused of. Karma came for him with 4 daughters. Now most times when people talk "karma" they mean it as a kind of universal revenge that has to mean some suffering. Not so. I'm certain that at some point Kobe looked at his daughters and thought: damn, would I have wanted my daughter to be in that situation? Would I be defensive of such behavior if that was my daughter? Kobe's daughters was his karma. He had to "make it right" for those closest to him and it seems he lived up to that. It may not satisfy those who want to make that situation the defining moment of his life, but Karma is not always so neat.

So my condolences to the family and my wishes to all to [re]evaluate what you're doing with your remaining time.