Tim Russert, the anchor of "Meet the Press" died yesterday at age 58. The cause was a heart attack after collasping at work. Wow, did that hit home for me. First of all, he is 10 years older than I am so that's not too far away. He apparently was hard working and one of the top professionals in his field.
I read in one article that he had just arrived back from Rome. He had two hours sleep but felt that this would last him until 10 o'clock that night. Instead he collapsed and is dead.....he never made it to 10 o'clock that night. I thought about how many times I have pushed myself, getting one or two hours of sleep and up the next morning ready to go for the day's meeting. I've even bragged about it as a sign of my tenacity.
As a self-proclaimed workaholic, this is a wake-up call for me. All of the success in world can't outweigh a long life. Although we never know precisely when it is our time, we can start to develop better habits that will perhaps prolong our life. I am guilty of pushing myself well beyond reasonable limits for things that are most often related to work. I do that because I am a driven high achiever. I get the sense that this was a similar profile for Tim Russert. It's time to look at things differently.
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