Part of the message Steve Jobs delivered in 2005 to Stanford University graduates was that:

“You’ve got to find what you love, following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward…you have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? If the answer is “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Reading the words of his life from infancy to a diagnosis that he would only have a few months at best to live was really humbling. It was amazing to me that our lives paralleled on quite a few levels. I relived parts of my own life going through Adoption. When Jobs related the medical instructions to “go home and get your affairs in order,” I was mentally right back with my sister in the same room.

Jobs called “Death” the single best invention of Life, a change agent making way for whatever newness needs to come in. He was fortunate and I’m happy that his health was restored. Coming face to face with Death, ironically is life changing.

A few years ago I was rushing to a high stress job at a popular station. It was about 10 am in the morning, rainy, but I was a pretty good driver so no worries.

Suddenly I felt myself spinning across all four lanes of the freeway from concrete wall to concrete wall. That was the longest few minutes of my life. And yet, as I reeled inside the car, I was aware of many different things, thoughts that should have taken hours to process zipped by in micro seconds. Looking out at the morning rush hour traffic as I spun, I saw each vehicle stop seemingly at the exact same time and bounce as if hitting an invisible barrier. My mental impression was that an invisible force, perhaps an Angel had appeared in the middle of the highway with outstretched arms to hold back the traffic, protecting me from the 65 mph traffic.

Spinning rapidly towards the concrete wall on the opposite side again, I began to see the faces of each and every one of my loved ones, my husband, my kids, my baby sister and my parents.

I saw clearly with regret the words that should have been spoken, the wounds that should have been healed. Arguments seemed trivial and the things I previously thought were all consuming and important just didn’t seem to matter anymore. The only thing of value was the thing I didn’t know if I’d accomplished. Letting others know I cared.

Now that I faced leaving this world, it was critically important to me that each person know that I truly loved them. It felt like I’d wasted precious opportunities and now it was too late. I felt such an overwhelming sense of regret and loss.

Next I felt what can only be described as a “presence” inside the car with me. It was a source of incredible power, authority and seemed to be everywhere at once. A voice I can still hear through the years demanded to know, “What purposeth thou?” I tried to find the answer mentally, because you just couldn’t deny this “voice” a response.

“The purpose is Love.” That was the last thing I heard the booming yet not overly loud “voice” say before my car stopped in the middle of the freeway facing all the oncoming traffic.

That changed me forever. I eventually resigned from my high stress job, started mending fences and embarked on a totally new path of self discovery and enlightenment.

People today ask how I can be so calm when things don’t happen the way I want them to. Why I don’t rant and rave and can take more things in stride than many others. How can I get along with some of the most difficult people in life.

It’s not hard to figure out. I know at the end of my life, no matter what, I have to answer to whomever or whatever that “voice” belonged to so I need to live accordingly.

I’ve asked myself many, many times why I was spared, what happened to me, and how could so much happen in what realistically had to have only been minutes suspended in time.

Perhaps it was because I had words of healing to offer the world, something that uniquely is mine to share with others because of the incredible life challenges I’ve overcome. In my entire family, my voice alone is uniquely different somehow. It always has been. I can remember in kindergarten hearing others exclaim over the sound of my voice. I don’t know where it came from but I know I’m to use it to benefit myself and others.

Part of me knows that I have my voice for a reason and need to use it to uplift others. I have taken broadcasting classes and speak reasonably well, with a few seminars given here and there. Writing has always sustained me from childhood.

Currently I’m in the middle of writing a book project which will be published early next year. I visualize myself discussing my book on Oprah and doing speaking engagements around the world because the content is so riveting. Not because it is my story, but because it is a story that involves all of humanity itself.

I’m attracting from the universe those who can help me develop finely tuned skills to move those goals forward so that I can repay my debt of gratitude for being spared.

What kept me alive? What drives me now? Perhaps its only to encourage you now, with the words that “you’ve got to be hungry” as Les Brown says. Or as Steve Jobs told the graduating class, “stay hungry, stay foolish.”

My message to you is that life is too short to do what makes you unhappy, to live solely for the sake of others and to sacrifice yourself for that which you don’t believe in.

“What purposeth thou?”