The O’Toole Chronicles: Final Cut

There will come a day when each of us will come face to face with our mortality, and in that moment, we will have to reflect inward and confront the timeless question—are you happy with this movie that is your life? It is at this moment we will reflect on our upbringing, our many experiences, good and bad, our legacy, and ask if are we truly happy and proud of what we have left behind. In the spirit of Martin Scorsese, did we make the perfect movie that is our life?

Devoted political creatures, by their very nature, are taught to grind away and have a hyper-focus on politics, leaving little room for the other things in this world, like family, friends, art, charity, or other worldly pursuits.

I confess, at one point during my life in this overwhelming world of politics, it overshadowed the finer (real) things in life. The start of a family, the birth of a child, and the creation of a business jolted me out of this trance, and I soon opened my mind to the rest of this beautiful world. I guess it is never too late to repent and reform.

But in my travels, I have met many elected officials, past, present, and future, who have sacrificed their lifetimes chasing this dragon called politics and finding that the hunger is never abated and the chase, win or lose, only leads to the next level of intense chasing and more political pursuits (imagine a gerbil on a hamster wheel).

At the end of the day, when your number is being called, who among us can say that they have lived their life in a manner with little regret and who among us can say that they are pleased with the final cut that is our life?

I recently had a dinner with 3 friends, we sat around the square wooden table at this New York old world Italian restaurant  and we  posed the question—if you died tomorrow, would you be happy with what you have left behind. I note that all four diners had (or have) lives in the very public eye. In reality, I was the piker in the group, as the other 3 dining companions had (have) far more consequential and higher profile public positions than I ever held.

The conclusion of this impromptu political séance was that while we found the 24/7 devotion necessary for success in those public jobs, we all recognized that there is a human price to pay as well. As far as an answer to the question about being happy if life ended after that dinner, three of the four diners said unequivocally that we would be content with our lives as is, and the other individual paused and said he is waiting for that last appointment in Washington D.C. that would make his career.