If today is the last day of your job at work, what do you do?
Find another job, right? That’s what I would do. That’s what most people would do if they want to stay employed.
But what if today is the last day of your life, what can you do? You can’t find another life on earth. I would keep my faith. I would hope to close my eyes and see God and all my loved ones.
Most people, including myself, don’t actively think about that question.
The fact is our life is finite. One day, it will end.
For some of us, it may end after a battle with cancer or some form of degenerative illnesses. That was the case with my uncle Sam.
For others, it may end suddenly without warning. That was the case with my mother. She met friends for dim sum during the day, and by early evening she couldn’t breathe. She died in our family car on the way to the hospital just five minutes away.
That devastating news dropped like a bomb on my head not only because I hadn’t expected that drastically deadly turn in my mom’s life, but also because I had been feeling excited and energetic that day. It was the first day of my new TV job in New York. That was the last evening of my mother’s life in Hong Kong.
“Work is easy. Life is hard.” Sonia said as she described the story of losing Ethan, her husband, suddenly, without warning. We were having a glass of wine in our home before dinner. Sonia couldn’t wrap her head around his sudden death. “Ethan was supposed to come home Monday after a few days of rest and tests in the hospital. They never mentioned he had a cardiac problem. But he died of cardiac arrest.”
She was grappling for a reason in the midst of grief.
“As a consultant, I was used to identifying the problem, then fixing it. Now, I’m at a loss. What went wrong? Who’s responsible?” Sonia was speaking breathlessly fast. I saw in her eyes the love and confusion of a widow and recognized that in myself that very same day when I lost my mom.
Sonia told me about their plans to travel the world. They were both semi-retired. They thought they had more time together after their marriage (the third for both of them) which lasted about fifteen years.
“Work is easy. Life is hard.” Sonia’s lament still lingers on my mind this day as I prepare to see her in a few days for dinner. Her emotional words stick with me because Sonia always kept her feelings in check and under control. Her honest outpouring of emotions that night was a nice surprise. She finally allowed herself to show her vulnerabilities as a human being, like all of us.
Sonia was a powerful woman at the top of her game at a top consulting firm when we first met about fifteen years ago. At the time, I was peaking in my career as well. We bonded instantly over our devotion to our work, I was still single and Sonia was newly married (to Ethan.). She rarely talked about her private life, but was enthusing over my career development and offering much-needed advice as a mentor. Our relationship grew over the years and I always saw Sonia as the rock.
“Work is easy. Life is hard.”
I can’t agree more with Sonia’s assessment. But I also think that both can be equally hard when we fail to see what made it so for us. What can make both extremely hard is when we approach life like work or work like life – a problem that we can fix. Sometimes that approach leads to solutions or breakthrough. But ultimately, we will find ourselves losing control over when or how the end will come. Recognizing that makes me pull back and lean in closer to my loved ones. Recognizing that also makes me see the meaning of my work and the purpose of my life differently. It is about how we touch one another’s lives for the better, one moment at a time, no matter how long.