dispatch from a dead man

So I just read this essay written by a terminally ill advertising executive. Wow. Stunned would be a pretty good description of my feelings at the moment. It's a truly sobering feeling to watch someone wretch out their feelings on the realization that they, by their standards anyway, had wasted their life.

The other thing I did, I now discover, was to convince myself that there was nothing else, absolutely nothing, I would rather be doing. That I had found my true calling in life, and that I was unbelievably lucky to be getting paid – most of the time – for something that I was passionate about, and would probably be doing in some form or other anyway. It turns out that my training and experience had equipped me perfectly for this epic act of self-deceit.

This hits far too close to home for me, and I suspect it will for some of you as well. Read the whole damn thing.