You Can Still Have a Perfect Day
An idea from a late CEO is helping me find moments of bliss
It’s been more than two months since the world as we know it was upended, and life has found a way to continue its relentless march forward. New routines have been discovered, but old habits have resurfaced. At home, it’s easy to let the days blend together into a blur of screens.
With summer approaching, I find myself thinking about the book Chasing Daylight, which has been lingering in my mind. Written by the late Eugene O’Kelly, a prominent finance CEO who found out he had terminal brain cancer and only three months to live, the book chronicles his final mission: to die well. The whole story is a deeply moving journey toward acceptance, but the part that I keep coming back to is O’Kelly’s quest for Perfect Days, days made up of a string of blissful, exhilarating moments, which he calls Perfect Moments.
O’Kelly posed the question: “If I told you to aim to create 30 Perfect Days, could you? How long would it take? Thirty days? Six months? Ten years? Never?” It’s a remarkably useful prompt, especially now, during this season of change and reflection.
Some years ago, before I’d picked up the book, I documented my own Perfect Days in my journal (I called them Happy Days). Most of them took place on vacation — for…
