Before I Die List

What do want to do with the time you have on this planet?

Long before Tim McGraw's hit "Live Like You Were Dying" came out, I looked this question square in the eyes.

Twice.

It helped me as a person - and my job search efforts - and it may help you job search efforts, too.

Paul and I had worked together early in our careers and formed the kind of friendship that comes from sharing a common hell. We maintained - and built upon - that friendship long after escaping our lowly jobs. We helped each other move several times. We invited each other for dinner. He introduced me to the joy of running and I introduced him to my friends and family. We helped each other grow as people and as professionals. And we talked about what we'd do "some day."

Then, a friend we had in common called me with news I neither expected nor wanted. My friend Paul had suffered a major coronary while cooking.

I sobbed for nearly an hour after that phone call. Writing this (even years after his passing), I find it difficult to read the words I type through the clinging tears losing their hold on my eyes.

I had lost many relatives before Paul's passing, and while their deaths hit me hard, they were elderly and they seemed like the natural progression of things. Paul was my first fallen contemporary. He was young - in his early 40's - and in good shape. This seemed very unnatural.

Since he and I had told each other what we wanted to do before we died, I knew Paul hadn't started working on his "Gotta Do Before I Die List." A few days after his death, I wrote down my own list. But as time passed, so did my enthusiasm for checking off item.

A few years later, I met Diane. She joined my Toastmasters Club and, in her first speech (what we call "The Icebreaker"), she spoke of her battle with a rare lymph system cancer. She was diagnosed with Stage 1 when she was just 25 and underwent chemotherapy. At such an early age, this attractive woman suffered the severe side effects of the treatment - including the humiliation of hair loss.