{"id":117,"date":"2014-09-11T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/no-more-taking-things-for-granted\/"},"modified":"2014-09-11T07:37:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T11:37:05","slug":"no-more-taking-things-for-granted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/no-more-taking-things-for-granted\/","title":{"rendered":"No More Taking Things for Granted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A re-post and reminder.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/New-York-On-the-rock-Empire-State-Building.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1237\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/New-York-On-the-rock-Empire-State-Building-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"New York - On the rock - Empire State Building\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/New-York-On-the-rock-Empire-State-Building-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/New-York-On-the-rock-Empire-State-Building-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">September 11 is only a couple of days away.\u00a0 For those living in America (and beyond), it is a sacred day.\u00a0 As well it should be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I remember much about that day 10 years ago.\u00a0 It still shapes much of my thinking as a context for the life I lead now.\u00a0 The events left me exposed.\u00a0 In the sense that I was trying to find my way with the wrong compass.<\/p>\n<p>I heard the stories of mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters who would never come home again.\u00a0 I felt sad.\u00a0\u00a0But there I was, taking for granted so much in my life.\u00a0 I was a little lost and wandering what my role (the real one) was to play.\u00a0 It took some years after 9\/11 to get to the following place:<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u00a0am no longer in the business of taking things for granted<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>At some point events converged and I began to see my life as a whole and not just parts.\u00a0 And again, it took me time to understand it and live it.\u00a0 Twists in the road made for much sickness.\u00a0 It was a process that I worked (still do) and committed to.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t want to be that person who woke one day to find he&#8217;d never really lived.<\/p>\n<p>An odd thing occurred last week at a talk I attended.\u00a0 I was asked what my greatest fear was.\u00a0 The answer:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Not doing meaningful work, paid or otherwise<em>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For me it was a gut check on what I believe,\u00a0what I value and whether I was willing to see my mission through until the end.\u00a0 I know this post won&#8217;t bring anyone back or heal a broken heart, but it&#8217;s worth noting I am no longer in the business of taking things for granted.\u00a0 Maybe that&#8217;s the best tribute I can give.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I remember much about that day 10 years ago.  It stll shapes much of my thinking as a context for the life I lead now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,6,54],"tags":[243,238,23,279,823,180,39,75,239,241,242,111,237,240,17,67,99],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-2","category-learning","category-life-perspectives","tag-10-year-anniversary-911","tag-238","tag-career","tag-culture","tag-epic-living","tag-eric-pennington","tag-life","tag-life-choices","tag-life-development","tag-meaningful","tag-meaningful-work","tag-regret","tag-september-11","tag-well-being","tag-wellbeing-2","tag-work","tag-work-life-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}