{"id":401,"date":"2007-07-02T12:17:19","date_gmt":"2007-07-02T17:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devinreams.com\/2007\/07\/02\/chasing-daylight\/"},"modified":"2007-07-02T12:17:19","modified_gmt":"2007-07-02T17:17:19","slug":"chasing-daylight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/?p=401","title":{"rendered":"Chasing Daylight"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the flap: “At 53, Eugene O’Kelly was in the full swing of life. Chairman and CEO of KPMG<\/a> .. he enjoyed a successful career and drew happiness from his wife, children, family and close friends…Then in May 2005, Gene was diagnosed with late-stage brain cancer and given three to six months to live. Just like that.”<\/p>\n

\tPut simply, Chasing Daylight<\/a> is a short, sad, and truly personal account of O’Kelly’s last few months and how he tries to ‘unwind’ all his relationships<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\tDevin decided you can skip this one.<\/strong><\/span> Although it was a touching story I’d hate for people to sympathize with O’Kelly. He lived a fast-paced life as a CEO. I think he realized he had developed more business relationships than truly close, personal ones<\/span>. He spends 3 weeks ‘unwinding’ with people described merely as ‘business associates’. His family dealt with this even through his last weeks of life.<\/p>\n

\tNot only did the family relationship annoy me but the fact that I don’t think he really learned anything. Sure, he became less business-like and more relationship-based. Still, he seemed to be desperately making up for lost time (and failing).<\/p>\n

\tThere were a few good take-aways: he finished his life peacefully and ready to “transition”, he tried to make the best of a bad situation, he was fortunate to be healthy and lucid in his final days. He was lucky… sort of.<\/p>\n

\tI think the best quote came in the beginning of the book:<\/p>\n

I couldn’t hide it any longer. “The moment she grabbed my finger,” I said, “it hit me that someday I’ll have to say good-bye to her.” (referring to his newborn daughter)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tBut, he admittedly missed most of her life growing up. With a CEO schedule, no wonder. Plus, he died before he had the chance to take her on their final vacation together (she was 14) to Prague.<\/p>\n

\tProbably because he was spending his time closing up relationships with his ‘associates’ early on…<\/p>\n

\tNote to self: get your priorities straight<\/span>.<\/p>\n

\tRelated reading: “Hold CEOs accountable for their bad parenting”<\/a>, Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the flap: “At 53, Eugene O’Kelly was in the full swing of life. Chairman and CEO of KPMG .. he enjoyed a successful career and drew happiness from his wife, children, family and close friends…Then in May 2005, Gene was diagnosed with late-stage brain cancer and given three to six months to live. Just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[585,83],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","tag-personal","tag-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}