Circle of Our Beings

Came across an article about the circles in our lives in yesterday's papers. In the article, the columnist wrote about his reflections and views on some reading materials revolving our social circles.

One of his reading material that stood out from the rest > CHASING DAYLIGHT: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life by Eugene O'Kelly (former CEO of KPMG, one of the biggest accounting firms in the world, aka one of the big 4). Guess it stood out from the rest and caught my eye as i too, am part of the accounting world.

Here's a link to a brief description of what it is.

KPMG Chief Executive's Last 100 Days

From my eyes, i see many people, including some of my colleagues around me, mirroring the life of Eugene O'Kelly. Working their life away without realising their priorities in life, putting in super long working hours day after day. Yes, like O'Kelly, most of us will justify that we are doing these long hours for our family and for our future easy retirement life with our loved ones.

But look at what happened to O'Kelly and it only proved one thing. The future is uncertain. He spent so much time with his outer circle of his life (made up by his acquaintances and business associates) that he neglected his inner circle (made up by his immediate family members). So much so that he missed all the major school events of his 14 year old daughter.

He did not sink into depression but he chose to use his remaining days wisely. He quit his job and set about managing his death, living his life anew. With his deathbed chronicles, he seemed to be probing the reader to re-think about his or her life and if we had struck the right balance without neglecting our core circle.

So have we strike the right balance? Only we know the answers. We can only wish that the answers do not fly into our face when we are facing our very last moments and that we realise it much earlier in our everyday living. =)