Luciano* has died, but you can start living now

Late last night I went for a swim at the Old Eds Virgin Active. It's that quiet time when almost everyone has gone home, and the day's work has exhausted a cities staffers.

I had gone to gym hungry, and had no choice but to immediately eat, and then train. So I didn't feel comfortable in the water.
I swam 1.5km - 36:17 - but had lost 500g through that workout, weighing in afterwards at a somewhat discouraging 76.7kg.

It had been an irritating day for various reasons. Today in my car, as I started up Glenhove road two black athletes started their ascent. It's a long, steady, brutal climb. I hooted halfway up and gave them the thumbs up. It may have been my imagination, but they seemed to speed up. At any rate, they got to the hill - running on foot - before I did, jammed in traffic.

The lesson really is to start living now, to be aware opf what's possible, and not to go through your life, half asleep, doing what everyone else is doing. Wake up and smell your own coffee.

A great place to start, is to go to your pain. Your pain is like a great treasure chest at the top of a mountain. Getting there isn't easy (even just in emotional terms). We insulate ourselves against that chest of pain by eating, or filling our lives with various inconsequential things. Our relationships too can be an endless scenario that avoids getting to the chest. It is only once we bravely take the trouble, do the work, and commit and stay on the hard road up that mountain, that we will find the secrets in the treasure chest.

They are, quite simply, the most important reasons behind who we are who we are, and what has hurt and formed us in our lives. It may be regrets or losses. It may be things we are aware of, but not fully aware of just how powerful these things are.

For me - and I realised this once again this morning - it's my mother, and I think, in general, my family. Like everyone else, you keep bumping your head against your pain, without fully acknowledging its importance.

Pain provides the quintessential message for your life to rediscover its meaning. So climb that mountain. Don't procrastinate. Be alone with your pain, and listen. Then begin to learn and find your way to the treasures that flow from really knowing and being who you are. That's the way to start living the life you are meant to be living.



*By Bernard Holland

Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian singer whose ringing, pristine sound set a standard for operatic tenors of the postwar era, has died. He was 71.
His death was announced by his manager. The cause was pancreatic cancer. In July 2006 he underwent surgery for the cancer in New York and had made no public appearances since then. He was hospitalized again this summer and released on Aug. 25.