Tragedy Leads to Enlightenment: A Reminder That Life Is Short

I woke up last Saturday to incredibly sad news. A young startup friend of mine passed away. 

He was brilliant, kind, driven and really just a good dude who leaves behind a wife and young son. I was playing our last in person conversation in my head. It was November last year, we were having coffee and carrot cake, talking for hours about his startup, family, geopolitics and life in general. Now he is gone. What a tragedy for the world. 

I’m still in shock but it kind of woke me up psychologically. Sometimes it takes a big loss to make you realize important things. If I am honest, I realized I was sleepwalking through life these last 7 months. Dissociated and out of body. It was like I was watching myself go through the motions of living in a third party view, just like a video game. Putting off hard decisions. Pretending to be happy outside, when I was just feeling completely numb inside. 

I think many of us walk through life this way. It’s easy to distract ourselves with social media, Netflix, bad food and alcohol. Unhappy with the state of our lives, careers and families but unwilling to do the work to fix it. It takes a painful wake up call to jar us out of this.

So for anyone out there, now is the time to fix this. Do the hard thing that is good for you. Get in shape. If you hate your job, get a new one. If you hate your city, move. If you want to be your own boss, this is a great time to start something new as a startup founder or creator. Life is short and a gift. Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your time. Take it all in. 

RIP Gio, I will miss our conversations. I will pray for you and your family. Thanks for your friendship and for waking me up.