John xxxxxx,
I want to tell you a story I shared on Super Soul Sessions a while back.
When I was in military school we had a colonel named Billy G. Murphy as Commandant of Cadets. We only saw him smile once — and I think it was an accident. But we loved him, because he loved us.
One night he gathered all of us together at 8 o’clock on a Sunday. We had noticed he was losing weight really quickly. The uniform he was wearing was starting to fit more like it was his father’s uniform. He told us he was diagnosed with cancer, and he had to leave the school.
This was, in essence, his farewell address. But he said something to us that day that I will never forget.
He said, “When it’s time for you to leave here — whether it’s time for you to leave this school, whether it’s time for you to leave your job, whether it’s time for you to leave your neighborhood, whether it’s time for you to leave this planet — make sure it mattered that you were ever even here.”
None of us are promised anything — more days, more weeks, or more years.
That’s why, when I was elected Governor, I placed a countdown clock on my desk that enumerates the number of days left in my term.
In the military, we don’t count time forward. We count it backward, toward mission completion. We know that the clock is always running.
I didn’t put this clock on my desk to create pressure for pressure’s sake. It reminds me that no one is promised a certain number of days or weeks or even years — in office or in life. The only thing we know is that with the time we have, we have to actually do something with it.
I hope that that resonates with you as it did with me, John xxxxxx, and does to this day.
Elevate,
Wes
