Life Is Difficult

People endure such bizarre and random hardships, sometimes it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. For example, of all the injurious lawsuits I am happy to not be embroiled in, the leader is called "Bladder Pelvic Mesh." It sounds funny, but you know it can't be.

As M. Scott Peck wrote in the first line of his best-selling book, "The Road Less Traveled," life is difficult. You've got to accept that truth, grasp it, even applaud it, and then move on, or you will always be suffering. I do know this much: I will likely live a fairly long time, even longer than I already have, based on what I call The Billy Joel Rule: Only the Good Die Young. I might add, also the Brilliant and the Super-talented. I am none of those.

Further evidence of this rule recently occurred with the death of David Goldberg, the 47-year-old CEO of an Internet company called SurveyMonkey, which is quite a big deal I have since learned. Ironically, he died while taking care of himself. On vacation with his family, David was exercising and slipped off a treadmill in a gym, hitting his head and bleeding from a traumatic brain injury. The father of two young children, his wife is also a big deal, being the COO of Facebook. Together the pair made millions, yet were by all accounts the nicest folks you'd ever want to meet.

The line that struck me in David's Wikipedia biography, which I read after hearing of his strange accidental passing, was said by a friend: "One of the truly great people on the planet, Dave was of almost unimaginably remarkable character." How sad that such a man died so young, and for no good reason.