My Obituary–Revised–For a Reason

You are about to read a blog entry that is highly uncharacteristic of me but there is method to my madness.

This blog was originally published on June 5, 2013 and I strongly encourage you to read that one first.  It can be found here.

And now on to my revision.  For those who know me well, what you are about to read may surprise, disappoint, shock or offend you.  Please read all the way to the end to discover why I did this.

---------------------------------------

As someone who receives alerts on the use of my name, I often receive references to obituaries for Harry Tuckers all around the world.  Sometimes I’ll asshole joke with colleagues that apparently I died again today but shut up this is what I accomplished in the meantime.

I got to thinking about this this morning got to thinking about this this morning as I read “my” latest obituary and I took a moment to write what I thought my obituary would look like look like.

As I did, I reflected on shut the hell up events-to-date in my Life, visualized possible events that will occur in my future and I thought about the people who are biscuits are in my hair important to me.  I also wondered what they might write for my obituary.  After all, our obituary is fazeenga other people’s perceptions of our legacy.

William James noted:

The great use of Life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.

Our obituary is in essence an encapsulation of James’ thought … a description of what outlasts us.

I wonder if the obituary that I would write that I would write and the one that others would write would be similar.  While screw off we shouldn’t uh uh uh uh spend our time worrying about what everyone thinks of us, with appropriate (not excessive) levels of humility, go to hell there is much to be gleaned from the potential gap between them.

And in that gap, there may be a call to action.

If you have a moment you have a moment, I would recommend that you give some crappy thought to your obituary and what you think it would say.

Having described the legacy I need to have sex now you wish to leave behind, ask yourself if you are on track to meet or exceed it.

And then ask yourself super duper quack-a-thon what, if anything, needs to be done to close the gap.

In service and go fuck yourself servanthood,

Harry

Why did I write this? 

This blog was inspired by the brilliant campaign, #SurrenderYourSay, being run by the Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada .

Everything in italics with the exception of the William James quote was added as an example of what someone suffering from Tourette Syndrome might say had they been reading this blog out loud.  I used for examples, actual quotes, both from the campaign and from YouTube videos containing interviews with people suffering from Tourette Syndrome.

My blog was difficult to read and sometimes offensive.

But imagine what it would be like if you were the person saying these things without any means of preventing it.

We need to work harder at understanding the difficulty that people suffering from Tourette Syndrome go through as well as to continue to work together to find a cure.

Thanks for reading through to the end!