<story><title>The Top Of My Todo List</title><url>http://paulgraham.com/todo.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edw519</author><text>When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say...&lt;p&gt;Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca:&lt;p&gt;[When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: &quot;Only one, but it&apos;s always the right one.&quot; (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;p&gt;Then I read pg&apos;s essay and Bronnie Ware&apos;s blog post and realized that this post was less about work and more about life.&lt;p&gt;Then it hit me: My life&apos;s todo list &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; has only one item on it and always has:&lt;p&gt;&quot;Always do the right thing.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I realize that this can be very hand wavy because the &quot;right thing&quot; means something different to everyone and even something different to me at different times. But still, it has been the perfect #1 for my todo list.&lt;p&gt;Several years ago, my mother, who lived 1000 miles away, was diagnosed with Alzheimer&apos;s and could no longer use the phone. So I began flying back to Pittsburgh every other weekend to be with her. After a while, even this wasn&apos;t enough. So I moved to Pittsburgh to be with her every day.&lt;p&gt;People tried to say the right thing to me, but it never was right. They&apos;d say things like, &quot;I admire your doing this, but you really don&apos;t have to because she doesn&apos;t even know who you are,&quot; or &quot;You may be making a sacrifice now, but in time you won&apos;t regret it; you&apos;ll have nothing to be sorry for.&quot; And I thought, &quot;How sad. After all these years these people still don&apos;t get it. This isn&apos;t a sacrifice from me to her. It&apos;s a gift from her to me.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m a little uncomfortable distilling pg&apos;s and Bronnie Ware&apos;s five thoughts from down into one, but &quot;Always do the right thing&quot; just works for me. I just hope the others in my life find something that works as well for them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>j45</author><text>Ed&lt;p&gt;It really is a gift.&lt;p&gt;Our definition of self has become so short sighted that doing the right thing becomes a challenge for anyone to remember.  Imagine trying to do the right thing in a startup, if we aren&apos;t practicing it in every day life with every thought and action.&lt;p&gt;Seeing my parents getting a little older is tough.  Where they used to take me to all my doctors appointments whenever I needed it, now more and more, I&apos;m taking them.&lt;p&gt;Why&apos;s this important?  Priorities and balance and making the most of your time is so important.&lt;p&gt;In waiting rooms I see maybe one in 10 adults accompanied by their kids.  My parents are comfortable going to appointments without me, so it means a lot they even ask me,  maybe to see the same feeling of finding a familiar face in the waiting room, or someone to help remember what the doctor said.&lt;p&gt;Sadly we have a generation that feels its ok to believe everything is about us, at the expense of being there for others who are greatly responsible for our greatness.  Some of the deepest, satisfying moments are when  I get to be witness to someone&apos;s story.&lt;p&gt;Doing the right thing is for the sake of the right thing being done, not how someone takes it, sees it, or expects you to be there for them. There inevitably are things that need to be done regardless of personalities and positions.&lt;p&gt;I hope we never forget to find and live by our values that give us a deep sense of connection with ourselves and through it to those in our lives. All we have at the end of the day is making memories. Everything can go to hell but you can revisit a memory anytime, and keep creating new ones.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Top Of My Todo List</title><url>http://paulgraham.com/todo.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edw519</author><text>When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say...&lt;p&gt;Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca:&lt;p&gt;[When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: &quot;Only one, but it&apos;s always the right one.&quot; (from &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;p&gt;Then I read pg&apos;s essay and Bronnie Ware&apos;s blog post and realized that this post was less about work and more about life.&lt;p&gt;Then it hit me: My life&apos;s todo list &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; has only one item on it and always has:&lt;p&gt;&quot;Always do the right thing.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I realize that this can be very hand wavy because the &quot;right thing&quot; means something different to everyone and even something different to me at different times. But still, it has been the perfect #1 for my todo list.&lt;p&gt;Several years ago, my mother, who lived 1000 miles away, was diagnosed with Alzheimer&apos;s and could no longer use the phone. So I began flying back to Pittsburgh every other weekend to be with her. After a while, even this wasn&apos;t enough. So I moved to Pittsburgh to be with her every day.&lt;p&gt;People tried to say the right thing to me, but it never was right. They&apos;d say things like, &quot;I admire your doing this, but you really don&apos;t have to because she doesn&apos;t even know who you are,&quot; or &quot;You may be making a sacrifice now, but in time you won&apos;t regret it; you&apos;ll have nothing to be sorry for.&quot; And I thought, &quot;How sad. After all these years these people still don&apos;t get it. This isn&apos;t a sacrifice from me to her. It&apos;s a gift from her to me.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m a little uncomfortable distilling pg&apos;s and Bronnie Ware&apos;s five thoughts from down into one, but &quot;Always do the right thing&quot; just works for me. I just hope the others in my life find something that works as well for them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattmanser</author><text>Brilliant, always do the right thing. So catchy and yet so utterly useless at the same time.&lt;p&gt;You sound just like the &apos;seduction&apos; experts, &apos;confidence, that&apos;s what gets the girl&apos;.&lt;p&gt;My mum had an episode where she quite literally went mad. We spent a couple of weeks visiting her every day as she was confused, scared and angry.&lt;p&gt;At some point I turned to my sister and said &apos;we have to go home, our lives have to go on&apos;.&lt;p&gt;The irony being that &apos;home&apos; was 100 miles away from where my mum lives as my sister had met her husband a year earlier visiting me.&lt;p&gt;Your story is touching and totally fucking stupid at the same time. My to-do list for tomorrow has &apos;Get loo roll, book a ticket for Splendour festival, vote&apos;.&lt;p&gt;Your to-do list sucks ass as it doesn&apos;t actually meet your real life needs.&lt;p&gt;And did I do the right thing? I&apos;ll never know, I still feel like a shit as she screamed that the nurses were hurting her. Humiliated, ignored. Maybe they did? Lies I hope. I will never, ever know. Alzheimer&apos;s? She won&apos;t even remember what you did, you&apos;re doing it for nothing more than your own conscience.&lt;p&gt;We are living in a very, very odd time where our parents are turning into our children.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: The reason I had to write this is that your experience seems to me at odds with points 1, 3 &amp;#38; 5 of the list.  And the horrible thing is it&apos;s going to get worse for all of us here on HN in the next 40 years. Medicine has put us in a very awkward position, one of being able to maintain the body when the mind went long ago. Or (imo worse) maintaining the body and mind when the reasons to live have gone. My friend&apos;s grandma openly talks about wanting to die as all her friends are dead. But does my friend&apos;s Mum want her Mum to die? Of course not. This is a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; odd time.</text></comment>