Why Are We So Focused On Living Long Lives Rather Than Living Our Dreams?

My wife records Oprah every day, typically I will catch snippets here and there as she watches the recorded show in the evening.  Today's Oprah was no exception and in the process I was fortunate enough to catch a pearl of wisdom so simple and so profound it prompted me to write about it.

In short, today's episode was about Breast Cancer.  Oprah had Christina Applegate on, other survivors with a story to tell, those who are still suffering from the disease, and several health professionals.  First Christina was just beautiful and beaming, but you could tell that she was suffering inside, there were many times it seemed as if she was going to breakdown, but she didn't.  I really felt for her and the others on the show.

The snippet that I caught concerned a woman that had been on the show before.  She had contracted breast cancer when she was in her thirties, had beaten it once, and now was suffering again.  This time, the disease had spread to her lungs and her brain.  Oprah asked her what she wanted to share, I'll try and be as accurate as possible with her quote (I'm sorry, I don't even know her name), and she responded "In this country we are so focused on living as long of a life as possible that we overlook the life that we live every single day".

Now, all of us have been told to seize the day in one form or another so many times it is cliche, but this really rang a bell with me as it contrasted all of our desire for a long life.  Why is it that we want to live so long when we don't really live to our potential with the time that we do have?

I don't have much more to speak of on this topic at the moment, but I wanted to share just that quote and that it had effected me in the way that it did.

After I caught her story, I came back and fired up Google Reader and Tim Ferris had a new blog post.  He showed off his desk and what they are doing over there in Europe in terms of new thinking in corporate environments.  Again, I had a shock to my system.  He has a quote that is on his desk, it reads "Do one thing every day that scares you".