I have often thought if you didn't have a whole lot of time left on this planet, how important would money really be to you? I mean, what would you want to do with the precious little time you would have left to enjoy life. Personally, I would want to spend as much time as I could with my family. After that, I would go to the ocean every day, and bogey board, and stick my toes in the sand. I would want to be with nature as much as possible, drink in as much of it as I could. All of this, of course, does not require any money or much of it anyway. We all know what North Carolina St. basketball coach Jim Valvano did with his last few days: he laughed, cried, and thought.
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Here's the thing, the Koch brothers are in their mid-seventies, how much time do they really have left here? What are they doing with their last days? They already have more money than they could possibly spend in 100 lifetimes, let alone what's left of this one, and yet they are still trying to hoard as much money as possible and make sure 99% of us don't make a living wage or properly educate our children. I chalked all this up to just soul-less bastards who never gave a thought of their own mortality but while watching a short piece on the Koch brothers I received the shock of my life! More after the orange gravestone....
I was watching a little documentary on the Koch brothers the other night ( can't remember what it was called) and I couldn't believe my eyes and ears! It was showing one of the Koch brothers dedicating a cancer research center in his name. He donated the money because......he had suffered from prostate cancer and wasn't given much chance of survival! I nearly fell out of my chair. so, quite contrary to my belief that they never thought of their own mortality, one of the Koch brothers had actually come face to face with his own mortality.
What makes this so hard to believe is that most people when they have faced death, it changes them forever. They don't sweat the small stuff, they enjoy life every day. Apparently this wasn't the case for this Koch brother, having faced prostate cancer and survived ( I am happy for him, I don't wish ill on anyone), but my God! how can you continue to ruin peoples lives, not to mention the environment, after you have been given a second chance at life. How big of an A-hole do you have to be! Wouldn't you be so grateful that you would take your money and make sure everyone had the access to excellent health care like you did? Better yet why don't you give your money away, and spend the rest of your days with your toes in the sand?
I know what a buddy of mine Gary did when he was faced with his last days. He was dying a horrible death from skin cancer. He knew how much I enjoyed playing Texas Hold-em poker in the card rooms in San Diego, but I rarely had the disposable funds to do so. He called me up to say he was going to give me $200 to go and play. He said he didn't have much time left and he wanted me to enjoy myself. It was a small but thoughtful gesture on his part. He passed away a week later.
My sig line is the quote from Will Rogers.."We are all here for a spell, might as well get all the good laughs you can." For the life of me, I just don't understand why we can't enjoy every day and make sure everyone else is having a good time too. I just don't get it.