M01.23 When Everyone Is Dead, Are You Still OK?

I didn't cry when my mother died, and I have felt some guilt towards that. Of course there was some sadness, but not the same heart-wrenching sobbing that accompanied the death of my father many years earlier… Finally I came to see that it was not through lack of love – we were as close as any mother or son can be, but I realised that I had completed our relationship a long time before she passed away. I no longer wanted or expected anything from my mother. I was fulfilled in our relationship, so when she died I didn't lose anything. There was nothing I wished I had said or done or got from her. I was absent of any regret. What was there to cry about? When I reflect more about this, I realize she is as present now as the time when my mind designated her "alive." In reality, for the final decade of her life, I lived in Japan with my wife and daughters, and would only see her physically once a year. I would call every week and catch her up on news, and sometimes I could feel she was tired and not able to talk much. The last time I saw her in full health I turned up unexpected at her birthday in Sydney – all the way from Japan without her knowing I was coming. Somehow I knew it was important for me to be there. She was 82, but my instinct told me to go and say goodbye. It was the right decision. I also meditate a lot on the death of my daughters – how would I be if they died? Would I be OK? Would I be able to carry on? The surprising answer is yes, I would. I get the same guilt coming on when I realise that. I don't know if that is true, and I certainly have no wish for this to happen now, but if it did, deep down, I know I would be OK. I think part of sanity is meeting your biggest fears, your greatest horrors. I know one of the readers of this blog recently faced a professional crisis (you know it's you) and my advice then is the advice I give now: go to the worst outcome. Find out the most terrible, horrible thing that could happen to you. Imagine it, live in it. Then ask the question: am I still OK? When someone dies, usually many years later we come to accept it. We start to remember less with sadness, more with fondness. So why not skip the sadness part, and go straight to being fond? Is there something constructive in being sad and lonely and missing a person? I can't find it. I know people pass through that. Do we have to? I thought we did. I thought it was "natural" and part of being human. Then my mother died and proved me wrong. I was fine. I meditate in the same way on the adventures I undertake to build my business. What if it all failed? What if I lost everything? Would I still be OK? And I found out that yes, I would be. I don't need the money, the success, the admiration – none of it. I need only the love of me from me. When I have that, I have everything. I have you. Maybe this is a little weird to be writing on a blog about building a successful career, but I see that fear is what cripples most of us to do extraordinary things. Most entrepreneurs fail many times in their life – so you can expect to fail many times while you build your business. Rather than avoid misfortune  - seek it out. At least in your imagination. Go the full hog, live the nightmare and keep asking that question: Will I still be OK? My mother died. I was OK.