| On this day in 2001, Brian Sweeney was aboard hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, moments before it would crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. In what would be his final act, he left a voicemail for his wife that continues to move us 24 years later. "I just want you to know I absolutely love you," Sweeney told his wife's voicemail. "I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody, and I just totally love you, and I'll see you when you get here." In Book 1 of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius reflects on the wisdom he gained from various teachers throughout his life. From his teacher Sextus, he learned "to be free of passion and yet full of love." This seemingly paradoxical concept perfectly captures what we hear in Sweeney's final message. When you listen to his voice (which you can hear here), what strikes you most is its remarkable steadiness. There is no hysteria, no panic—instead, there's clarity and purpose. In the face of certain death, he was free from the passions that so often consume us: anger, fear, despair. Yet his message overflows with the most powerful force we humans possess: love. This is the Stoic ideal in action. Not cold detachment, but passionate purpose channeled toward what truly matters. As Seneca wrote, "Pure love, careless of all other things, kindles the soul." When everything else is stripped away, when all our pretensions and distractions fall aside, what remains is our capacity to love—and to act from that love even in our darkest moments. Today, on the 24th anniversary of that terrible day, let's honor Brian Sweeney and the thousands of others we lost by striving to be, as Marcus said, "free of passion and yet full of love." Let's tell those we care about that we love them, without reservation. Let's approach each challenge not with reactive emotion but with purposeful love. Because there is almost no situation where unchecked passion helps, but almost every situation is transformed when filled with love. *** |
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