I was privileged today to read a eulogy that appeared in the NY Times, a sibling writing about her famous and influential brother, Steve Jobs.
The piece reminded me how precious life is, and death too. You know this very well if you have gently paced a relative in the process of dying. This is what we do with our elderly parents in aged care facilities, but also sometimes with someone younger, like Jobs was. A relatively young person’s death is all the more poignant because a ripe old age can now be 80 or 90 years old.
I like a quote that I came across… or perhaps I made it up, I can’t remember.

What an individual does now affects what becomes of him or her in the future. May we live our lives as though we are investing in our future selves!

A spiritual discipline or an ethical code like the yama and niyama gives us structures for steering through thickets and quagmires so we end our days hopefully without regrets, having fulfilled our best selves.
Whatever you might think of Mr. Jobs, I think you will enjoy the expression of love from his sister Mona Simpson, a novelist and a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Click here to read.