Thoughts about a suicide, life and Yom Kippur

[rug]

Friday, October 7 2011|Dahlia Scheindlin

André died the day before Rosh Hashana. He wasn’t Jewish, but an American of Hispanic descent, born Catholic; although he delighted in displaying insider knowledge of the tribe.

I found out about his death on Facebook. It was a terrible déjà vu. About two years ago a childhood friend who had reconnected with me on the ubiquitous site died naturally and inexplicably, midway through her first pregnancy and deeply in love with her husband. The blunt message from her brother on her wall left me gaping, and then sobbing for days. I was angry at Facebook for making a terrible death seem so cold – until I realized I ought to thank Facebook for bringing us back together in the first place.

André and I got back in touch years after we left the polling firm where we were starting analysts together. By 2008 when we saw each other again, we were both independent polling consultants, and both of us were deeply committed to the political and social mission of our work.

André’s death will never be explained by medical science. In the early morning hours of September 27th, he jumped off a high bridge in Pasadena, California where he lived with his wife, who is equally socially committed, politically active and a professional star – not to mention sweet and beautiful.

http://972mag.com/thoughts-about-a-suicide-life-and-yom-kippur/24781/

[Meshuga]

1. I work in software engineering project management

And I think that "post-mortem" or "lessons learned" meetings at the end of projects are very valuable in working towards maturing the process for our software group. We look at what worked, what didn't work, and what we did wrong, where we lapsed, and we plan to improve the process for the next project.

Yom Kippur is a tool I use in a similar way as the "lessons learned" meetings. It is a way of looking back in the past year, recognizing mistakes, making corrections, and planning for the next year in the quest of maturing as a person.

That is why I really like the Jewish High Holidays.

Thanks for the post!