1. The Fall

“Steve jobs is dead,” I said.

A collective gasp went through the audience. We all knew he’d been sick—his seven-year battle with pancreatic cancer was well-covered by the media—still, the news of his death that morning was a shock. The Apple-founder, perhaps the most consequential tech CEO in history, had transformed our lives in so many ways and now he was dead. He was fifty-six years old. In that relatively short lifespan, he’d accomplished so much—arguably, many of us were at this conference, a gathering of some of the best and brightest from the worlds of technology, culture, and sustainability, because of his example. He’d touched so many, regardless of whether we used Apple products. Indeed, he had inspired a lot of people at the conference and around the globe to devote themselves to changing the world for the better.
Fifty-six. As I stood on the stage that October morning in 2011, a couple of years shy of fifty myself, I couldn’t help thinking—as perhaps many in the room were thinking, too, in the wake of the example of Jobs—what have I done with my life? Have I lived up to my full potential? Have I done everything I could to make the world a better place? Isn’t that why we’re here? Not just here at this conference, billed as “three days to save the Earth,” but on the planet itself. Perhaps everyone in the room, like me, weighed their achievements, their aspirations, and how they had lived their lives. And perhaps, like me, everyone wondered how they wanted to spend the rest of their time on the planet.

For me, the run-up to that October day had been a year of constant turmoil and self-torturing reflection. My thoughts and feelings ran riot in my mind, veering from a tormenting sense of failure and inadequacy to an inflated sense of self-worth and hubris, from a pessimistic view of my prospects to a belief in the abundance that would come my way through persistence. My career had been in a major upheaval over the previous four years as I pivoted from a decade and a half working in conservation onto a new path trying to establish myself in cleantech and alternative energy. My marriage of nearly twenty years was on the verge of collapse—I’d been painfully unhappy for many years and was desperate to leave, but with three kids under the age of sixteen, I felt paralyzed by the potential impact leaving would have on them. As if that wasn’t enough, I’d fallen in love outside of marriage and felt compelled to seize the opportunity offered by this new relationship or risk losing what I saw as the chance of a lifetime—a last chance at happiness and authentic, uncompromised love.
Jobs’s death struck a chord—he was such an uncompromising, disruptive, and creative person—a genius—always remaining true to himself and to his vision. Had I been true to my dreams? Had I lived my most authentic, purposeful life? If not, what was I waiting for? Life is short, I thought, and if I couldn’t take the leap now, would I ever?