"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."—    Ralph Waldo Emerson

He spoke slowly, measuredly, the tears streaming down his face.  “All good things come to an end,” he said, pausing, trying to hold on to the moment, unable to complete the sentence.  “I've given everything I possibly can give…to the game of football, and I don't think I've got anything left to give, and that's it. I know I can play, but I don't think I want to. And that's really what it comes down to.”

“It was never about the money or fame or records, and I hear people talk about your accomplishments and things ... It was never my accomplishments, it was our accomplishments, the teammates that I've played with, and I can name so many. It was never about me, it was about everybody else.”

And with that, he was gone.

Yesterday, Brett Favre retired from the Green Bay Packers and the NFL after 17 years of doing what he loved, playing the game of football.  For those of us who have watched Favre play, it was hard to ignore the passion with which he played the game.  A brilliant athlete, he played the game with the enthusiasm of a kid playing a game of pick up on the school yard, running, laughing and cheering his teammates from a place so deep within him it was contagious. You couldn’t help but smile along. He was truly amazing.

And lucky.

A friend of mine came to speak to my class yesterday about her work with Hospice.  The students sat quietly as she spoke about the work; helping people as they go through the final stages of their life.  A young man raised his hand.  “How do you do it?” he asked.  “How do you watch people die every day?”

She turned to him, nodding, understanding the need to ask the question that was on so many of our minds.  “You know,” she said, “It is an honor to be with people at this time in their lives.  It is the most honest work you can do.  This is the end.  People want to talk about things.  They want to make sense of their lives.  I’m lucky that I get to do it with them.”

“What have you learned through your work?” a young woman asked.

“That nothing is guaranteed.  We don’t know how much time any of us have.  That’s why it’s important to do what you love each and every day.”

I remember a conversation I had with my Dad when I was much younger.  Dad was in the business world, the world of meetings, deadlines, high stress, bottom lines, more stress and long plane trips that took him away from his family.  I, a young whippersnapper with a resume that consisted of two years as a library page, a short (and not particularly successful) stint as a waitress and a year selling lobster, asked him if he liked what he did for a living.

I’ll never forget his response.  He looked at me for a moment with the kind of look that told me I had posed a question that he had never considered before.  “It’s work,” he said, and that about summed it up.

Years later we had a similar conversation. He had been retired for quite some time by then and retirement had changed him.  Free from the constraints of earning a living, he had embraced life in a different way, grabbing it by the horns and living with the passion and intention of the knowledge that it was not going to last forever.  I can’t help but wonder if that conversation that we had many years before had stayed with him the way it stayed with me.

Each of us has a choice every day to live with intention, to do honest work, to play the game with passion, to do what we love and love what we do.  Every day.

Because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.