Little slow out of the gate today. I slept in. Should feel good, but when I’m in bed for too long, I get a lower back ache. I haven’t figured that one out yet. 108th vlog, but the 108th run will be out on the trails today. Can’t wait to take in that fresh air.
Last night, I posted about playing the Black Pumas. Yesterday with my family in tow, we hit up Rainbow Records in Newark. I used a birthday gift card and picked up this wonderful deluxe album – 2 records and 7″ bonus vinyl with a couple other songs.
Books!
- Been reading the Seth Godin marketing book as well as the Emmanuel Acho book – Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.
- But something that I recently finished was Being Mortal by Atul Gawande – a book that I had heard during a couple podcasts of mine to go and read. So, I got it at one point last year, not knowing that I had already read one of his other books – The Checklist Manifesto. Terrific book on bringing order to what should be routines but can easily be looked over in very serious situations. Examples are given procedures with airplane take off & landings as well as hospital surgery rooms.
- Back to Being Mortal – this book made me tear up several times. I randomly would go up to my wife and just say, “I need a hug.” Now, I’m not a fan of the sadness either, but it’s a powerful book on life and the ending of life. Or – how it could all end. The tortures of individuals with how modern day medicine attempts your survival but instead prolongs the suffering. Hospice is discussed. I’ve been familiar with hospice since I was a kid, because my dad worked with a hospice group. Unfortunately, the talk of hospice scares a lot of people because they feel as if it’s a direct road to the end, but that’s not necessarily true. It could be a happy ending. One that the certain individual wants with family around and not feeling the pain of machines keeping you alive in lonely hospital bed. Plus, with COVID and all the hospital restrictions today . . . whew . . . just read the book. I think it would benefit in helping some talks with your parents or grandparents and what they want as well as with your significant other / loved one / whatever – find out what you truly want and prepare that path. This one guy – all he wanted at the end was to be able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football. Dumbed down life to those two simple requests. So, decisions were made that if he couldn’t do that at the very end, he didn’t want to be a part of it. Happy endings – that’s what we all want, right? Again, a powerful book and really well written.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” – by Frederick Douglass – I took that one from a Ryan Holiday tweet