1 month ago I got a phone call telling me that my grandfather had passed away.
We had expected Death to greet us with his presence for some time, but even if you know that he is coming, you are never prepared when he steps through the door.
In the presence of Death, you are given the opportunity to look at life differently.
You are reminded of what is important.
Don’t worry. I will not spend the rest of this letter trying to get you to “Carpe Diem”, to seize the day and be glad to be alive. Robin Williams taught you that years ago.
No, instead, I want to tell you three lessons that my grandfather taught me and that I know will resonate with you as well.
Focus on what you enjoy doing now, you never know what will be invented later.
Born in 1937 he lived through the great acceleration and saw the world change. He traveled, had friends and colleagues in many parts of the world and knew how to tell a good story.
Early in his professional career he came into contact with computers and spent most of his life working with them in one way or another.
He reminded me of that when I was younger and was worrying about what to study and do with my life. He ended up working over 30 years on something that wasn’t invented when he went to school.
In our fast changing world, that is still a perspective to keep in mind.
Focus on what you enjoy doing now, the rest will sort itself out.
Don’t think you know it all, just because you passed the test
When you get you driving licence you feel like you are on top of the world.
That feeling of freedom is very special.
I got pulled down real quick though with the words:
“This doesn’t mean that you can drive. … It means that you have been giving permission to continue practicing on your own.”
Even at the age of 18, I got the wisdom in those words and I’ve carried that mentality into other parts of my life ever since.
To always continue to practice and to stay humble about all the things you don’t know.
Everything has a MTBF - value
Just last year he told me that in the early days of computer technology, they used something called the MTBF - value. It was used when selling and working with computers.
MTBF stands for Mean Time Between Failure. The hardware was so bad that parts often broke and they had to be repaired. When you got up to a MTBF - value over 24 hours, you were starting to have “good computers”.
Computers are better today… but they are not perfect.
And neither are you. You will make more mistakes.
You can only hope that the time between those mistakes gets longer and longer.
How do you sum up a life?
Well… you can’t.
I could continue to write. Page up and page down.
Write stories about adventures that he brought me and my cousins on.
But regardless of how much I write, I would only scratch the surface of what I know and remember. And even if I could write all that down, it would only be a tiny fragment of his life, a majority of which happened before I was born.
All the laughs, songs, and experiences he had throughout his life cannot be summed up in a few words on a page.
The same is true of your life. If you think that your mundane life is boring, look again. There are riches there which together become a collage of memories, emotions and building blocks to this wonderful world.
Now stop reading what I have written and call a relative that you haven’t talked to in a while.
One day, you can’t.
Until next time!
Daniel - The Talking Bridge
Ps. Music Memory
