In this video Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper are talking about life, death, and grief. This weekend, my coworker and friend passed away. He wasn’t my best friend. We didn’t hang out away from work. I almost always detest when people blow these things up for dramatic effect. He was a good, young kid that was just starting his career. He wanted to be good at what he did and do he leaned on all of us in the office for advice.

This story exists on two levels. There is the overwhelmingly sad human angle. This was a 30 year old kid that had just gotten married. He and his wife hadn’t even been married a year. They both are in their first years as teachers. Quite literally, his life was snatched right out of the starting gate.

You can watch the video over and over again and get choked up every time when you notice Cooper struggling to get through the quote. How could the worst things that happen to us be gifts? How demented do you have to be to express thanks for your own suffering?

On a human level it is is very simple. We are fallible and the moment we admit that, the better off we are. These moments also put our own loss in perspective. How could I possibly compare my struggles with his or his wife’s? Even with my own stuff, I can’t possibly know what to say in this moment. I am speechless. On a larger scale, we can share on our humanity and cherish the time we do have.

When I look at our world, what I see more than anything is a sharp rise in narcissism. In this context, it can best be defined as the excessive concern with self. We are the center of the universe. Everyone exists to meet my needs. Their thoughts, feelings, and concerns are of no consequence to me unless it can be used to meet my desires and my needs.

What has this narcissism wrought? I’d point to the very real situation this couple went through. The people working within the school district were caring and feeling people, but the district itself can’t be. They both ran out of days quickly and whatever benefits that coworkers could pass on also ran out. That includes sick leave banks, disability, and bereavement leave.

I bring this up because it is the norm in our industry and dozens of others as well. You work to serve the company. When you can no longer work you are of no use to the company. So, you are at the mercy of whatever individual managers might feel in the moment. Even then, our capacity for charity is limited.

We work longer and harder than most countries. When you just compare us to the industrialized world we also make less per hour for that time. Our standard of living is lower partially because of the choices we have made. The individual’s ability to make millions or billions trumps the standard of living of ordinary people. Most other countries offer more extended leave to care for a family members, prepare for a baby, or deal with your own illness.

Congress couldn’t pass a bowel movement right now much less landmark employee rights legislation. Maybe that will change some day. What we can do is hug our friends and loved ones a little tighter. We can laugh a little more and a little louder. We can also remember that whatever stuff we are dealing with is not nearly as bad as what others have to deal with.

“Tuesdays with Morrie” just might be the greatest book I’ve ever read. Mitch Albom began as a sports writer, but has morphed into an author that is somehow relentlessly positive. The book I am thinking of here is “The Five People you meet in heaven.” That book got me thinking in a round about way about death. Each of us reaches of moment of mortality when we realize we will die someday. More importantly, we realize that those that are closest to us will also die one day. One way or another we have to come face to face with our own mortality and the mortality of those we love.

This isn’t about the five people you meet in heaven, but the three people you actually want to die. It could seem like these three folks are all the same, but they aren’t. The first kind is one we have all run into at one time or another. They are suffering. They are in incredible pain or their life is not nearly what it once was. Sometimes they are suffering from physical ailments or disease. Sometimes it is psychological or spiritual in nature. We want them to no longer feel any pain. A wish of death in that moment is not intended with malice or anything other than the love we feel for that person.

The other two aren’t that. The other two might be a reflection of us as much as them. The first is the rich uncle, aunt, or distant relative each of us imagines that we have. We don’t know them or don’t really care about them, but we each imagine them leaving their millions to us for some reason. They would put us on easy street and we don’t lose anyone we particularly care about. That is pure fantasy. We somehow convince ourselves that their money and inheritance is worth more than their lives as it pertains to us. Again, any of us that honestly feel this way are not exactly living our finest moment.

Then, there’s the third kind. It has nothing to do with money and it has nothing to do with mercy. Simply put, our lives would be better and easier if they were not around. We hate to create it like a balance sheet, but the net negatives greatly outweigh the net positives. In most cases, we can’t necessarily even see net positives. They may or may not be there based on the person, but we have all come to that calculation at some point.

The cruel irony is that those of us that have that feeling have it because we are better than that. We recognize that our existence impacts others’ existence. We make people’s lives better or worse on a daily basis. Some don’t have that internal struggle. They just don’t care. Other people are not independent entities into themselves. They exist only to enrich that person’s life. They are an extension of them and not their own person. When that person goes, the people in their life are just happier. A weight has been lifted. I can’t think of a more soul crushing thing to say about anyone.

So, when I say that no one will shed a tear when the ex-president goes I don’t do it gleefully. I can’t. Melania will definitely be happier. His children will likely never admit it, but their lives will become easier. Those in his orbit will breathe easier. The entire GOP might throw a private party for themselves. Anyone that actually knows the ex-president personally will be happier when he goes than they are now. I can’t think of a sadder commentary than that. I know Mitch would be disappointed in me that my mind went to the dark. Maybe I will come up with something more positive next time.

Greg Abbott has definitely cast his lot by throwing his muscle behind voter suppression, killing health measures, and failing to fix a broken energy grid. He is certainly courting those voters and he knows who to target. The question is whether those he targets will be there to vote for him when 2022 rolls around.

Multiple data points indicate that he may be fighting a losing battle. We know anti-vaxxers are more likely to be Republican than Democrat. Numerous other data points indicate that Republicans are dying at a much faster rate than their more progressive counterparts. Abbott certainly has taken care of making sure the wrong people can’t get to the ballot, but you have to wonder if he has stopped to consider that the right ones might be six feet under by the time November of 2022 gets here.