I met with a dear client of mine today whose doctor had relayed some bad news. A couple of months ago she was diagnosed with lung cancer. This really caught her by surprise because she’s been healthy her whole life, and she has never smoked. The tumor in her was growing instead of shrinking with her treatment. She will be starting a new treatment, and hopefully it works.

She had come into my office because she wanted to update the beneficiaries on her retirement accounts based on her estate planning attorney’s recommendations.

She said a couple of things to me that really impacted me. She said the hard part about all this was the impact it is having on her adult children. I asked her if there are any big trips or anything she wanted to do with her family. She said, “No, just getting to spend as much time with them as possible. That’s what it’s really all about.”

She said one of the great things about getting sick and knowing that you’re sick is so many people reach out to you, contact you, send you letters and come by your house to drop things by. She said, “I really feel loved.” She also commented that some people aren’t lucky enough to have this type of advanced warning.

It was a cold January afternoon. She looked out and said it was a beautiful day. I could just tell she really appreciated how beautiful the day was. As we were standing at her car door, the last thing she said to me was, “Jason do what you want to do. Don’t wait to live.”

Are you waiting to live?