On the night before 9/11, I entered my first media class in Greenwich Village with Professor Nina Khrushcheva. I had just entered graduate studies at the New School in International Affairs. Khrushcheva, great granddaughter to former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, was also my advisor. We spent the class talking about the debacle that was the Vietnam war and how the face of war would change. The next day, the towers fell.
During the day, I was in global sales with a luxury hotel chain. My world was pretty good then, Park Avenue office and lots of global travel. My job was to secure corporate and incentive business for the company and to drive this business into our many hotels.
In fact, one of my clients was enjoying an incentive trip into the Loire Valley and, as a driven high producer, he left his wife to come back to New York early to close a deal. He did not make it out of the towers.
The tragedy of that day will never leave us. As a team, we frantically spent the day trying to reach friends and clients in the World Trade Center as we watched the horrific debacle unfold, in disbelief.
That day changed me forever, because once I emerged from my shock and grief a year or so later, I left the hotel business and I left New York. I initially went to France to fulfill my dream of becoming a writer.
That day taught me that we should never postpone the living out of our dreams, because nothing is guaranteed..for any of us. The people in the towers were just going to work. Many were young and they probably thought they had all the time in the world.
We tend to live under this illusory feeling that we, too, have all the time in the world. But we don't. Every breath is vital, because every breath may be our last breath. Perhaps the better approach is to give our all to life in this singular, precious moment of time.
The past is gone. The future is yet to be written and we can imagine and dream that into existence. But nothing replicates the exquisite importance of living in the now.
Because it is only in the now that Life truly exists.
During the day, I was in global sales with a luxury hotel chain. My world was pretty good then, Park Avenue office and lots of global travel. My job was to secure corporate and incentive business for the company and to drive this business into our many hotels.
In fact, one of my clients was enjoying an incentive trip into the Loire Valley and, as a driven high producer, he left his wife to come back to New York early to close a deal. He did not make it out of the towers.
The tragedy of that day will never leave us. As a team, we frantically spent the day trying to reach friends and clients in the World Trade Center as we watched the horrific debacle unfold, in disbelief.
That day changed me forever, because once I emerged from my shock and grief a year or so later, I left the hotel business and I left New York. I initially went to France to fulfill my dream of becoming a writer.
That day taught me that we should never postpone the living out of our dreams, because nothing is guaranteed..for any of us. The people in the towers were just going to work. Many were young and they probably thought they had all the time in the world.
We tend to live under this illusory feeling that we, too, have all the time in the world. But we don't. Every breath is vital, because every breath may be our last breath. Perhaps the better approach is to give our all to life in this singular, precious moment of time.
The past is gone. The future is yet to be written and we can imagine and dream that into existence. But nothing replicates the exquisite importance of living in the now.
Because it is only in the now that Life truly exists.