This morning I left early and I thought to myself, you know, I don't think anybody at Apple ever thought of the iPad being a flashlight. But it is. I use it as a flashlight. My wife is asleep and I get up and I turn on my iPad and I use it to find my way to the bathroom to where I can get, you know, showered and changed, ready to go. I turn off that light and use it as a flashlight again. And I was tying my shoe, I perched the iPad there on the chair so I could see what I was doing in the dark led by the iPad. And I thought, that's not something anybody set out to do at Apple, I'm sure, and how many of us do that.
And then I went and I kissed my wife goodbye and I left for work. I can't believe I'm going to give you a Lady Gaga story, but I'm going to. Lady Gaga announced Tuesday that she had to cancel four upcoming shows due to a severe inflammation of joints that has left her unable to walk. She said in a tweet ‑‑ believe me there's a point in talking about Lady Gaga here ‑‑ in a tweet that she had been hiding the show injury and chronic pain for some time now from her staff. But her condition has worsened. She said, "I don't want to disappoint my amazing fans. However, last night's performance I couldn't walk, and I still can't." It will hopefully heal soon. I hate it. I hate it so much. I love you and I'm sorry.
Well, as it turns out, she may have something more than a show injury, don't know, it's speculation, but it could be the onset of lupus. And right now it's called synovitis, which is a swelling of all of the joints. And it could be caused just from her performances, but it's usually the onset of lupus which, in the end your organs shut down and you're just waiting for the next organ to shut down. Your body starts rejecting itself and little by little you start to die. It's just a faster way to die. As I said that little by little you start to die, that happened to us at birth. Little by little you start to die.
But I thought of this story and I thought, what is her life like now? What is she going through now if she realizes "Soon I may not be able to walk? I may not be able to dance. I may not be able to sing." What is her life, what does she have in her life? Maybe a lot. But here she is defined by her performance, at least by us, maybe not in her head but defined by her performance.
Today's Valentine's Day, and today is just another workday for most of us. But for those of us who didn't buy flowers because we forgot, didn't get a card because we forgot, or just got up this morning and kissed your wife goodbye and then you went to work, may I suggest that we learn this from Chris Kyle just last Sunday, that he kissed his wife goodbye and he went to go help somebody else and he never returned? He had worked hard and he had given all of his money, all of the profits from the book that he wrote, a lot of money, to other vets to help them? Because he thought he had a long life in front of him. All of us think, "I'm going to live forever." All of us think we're invincible. At some point in our life we realize, boy, we're really not. And it could be just about anything that hits us. And before long we start to realize, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute; this is going to change my life. As Lady Gaga is feeling. May I suggest that if it's not this story or the Chris Kyle story, you find a story in your own life.
I told my family, told my wife just the other day, getting old sucks. I mean, I'm 49, so I'm not old, but getting old sucks. Your life changes. Kiss your wife like you're not going to see her again. When you say "I love you" to your kids, say it like you're not going to see them again. As so many of the parents in Sandy Hook wish they would have that morning. Live your life to the fullest. Don't put off today what you will regret not doing tomorrow, or someday down the road. If you're going into the office today, why? Find your "why." Why are you there? Isn't there anything else you could do better with your time? Are you doing anything that is actually meaningful? Make your time away from your family or your kids worth it. In the end I have to be, and I've thought of this a lot, I have to be able to look my children in the eye in the end and say, "I was away from you and I thought of you every minute I was away, but I had to do this because I thought it was important."
Everything you do, seize the moment. If we could all just live our lives as this was the last day of our life, the world would change. Would your work, would you ‑‑ what you're doing at work, would you do it better? Would you do it at all? Stop spending time in life and start living it.