{"id":4615,"date":"2025-05-09T16:41:48","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T20:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4615"},"modified":"2025-05-09T16:41:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T20:41:48","slug":"that-sound-you-hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/09\/that-sound-you-hear\/","title":{"rendered":"That Sound You Hear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Twenty years ago, 53-year-old Eugene O\u2019Kelly was chairman and CEO of KPMG, one of America\u2019s largest accounting firms.

He lived life at breakneck speed.\u00a0

He and his family rarely went on vacation together.\u00a0He missed virtually every school function of his seventh-grade daughter.\u00a0

But the O\u2019Kellys would have all the time together they needed when he retired, as he planned, at age 58.

On one occasion O\u2019Kelly was frustrated that he couldn\u2019t secure an appointment with an important potential client, a banker who lived in Australia.

When he learned that the banker was going to take a 90-minute flight from Sydney to Melbourne, O\u2019Kelly booked himself in the first class seat right next to him.\u00a0Then he flew 22 hours from New York to Sydney, quickly boarding the flight to Melbourne.

He introduced himself to the shocked Australian and closed the deal within 90 minutes.\u00a0

Then he flew back to Sydney and boarded the 22-hour return flight to Manhattan.\u00a0

We\u2019re talking about a seriously motivated guy.

O\u2019Kelly recalled, \u201cOver the course of my last decade with the firm, I did manage to squeeze in workday lunches with my wife. Twice.\u201d

Then everything came to an end.

In the spring of 2005, O\u2019Kelly was diagnosed with an advanced glioblastoma, a late stage brain cancer.\u00a0It was inoperable. He died four months later.

Chasing Daylight<\/em> is the personal record of that final summer when he rethought his entire existence.\u00a0The subtitle of his book is \u201cHow My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life.\u201d

O\u2019Kelly writes, \u201cFor ten years I had been going 100 miles an hour, all straightaways, no turns.\u00a0On the day I died, I would be going zero.\u201d

He learned a great deal in a short period of time about the nature of commitment.

He had always assumed that the ultimate evidence of commitment was cramming everything you possibly could into every spare minute.\u00a0But as his life slowed down, it dawned on him that genuine commitment is actually about giving your life, as best you can, to the things that matter most.

Every one of us is qualified, right now, to write a book with the same subtitle:\u00a0\u201cHow My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life.\u201d

Eugene O\u2019Kelly was given a death sentence.\u00a0You and I have been given death sentences, too.

All of us are terminal cases<\/em>.\u00a0

Think back over the past four months of your life.\u00a0Would you want your behaviors and decisions during those days \u2013 the way you spent time with family members, colleagues, and God \u2013 to represent your last <\/em>four months of life?

If not, what\u2019s standing in the way of living right now <\/em>the way you have always felt called to live?

The way we answer that question goes to the heart of what it means to live wisely.

Don\u2019t put off discerning, with God\u2019s help, your very best answer.\u00a0Then choose to live it.

That sound you hear is the ticking of the clock.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Twenty years ago, 53-year-old Eugene O\u2019Kelly was chairman and CEO of KPMG, one of America\u2019s largest accounting firms. He lived life at breakneck speed.\u00a0 He and his family rarely went on vacation together.\u00a0He missed virtually every school function of his seventh-grade daughter.\u00a0 But the O\u2019Kellys would have all the time together… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[564,258],"class_list":["post-4615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-priorities","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4617,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4615\/revisions\/4617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}