I'm Emily P. Freeman and welcome to the next right thing.

You're listening to episode 244.

This is a podcast about making decisions that also about making a life.

If you struggle with decision fatigue, with chronic hesitation, or if you just need a few

minutes away from the constant stream of information, and the sometimes delightful, but also distracting

hum of entertainment, you're in the right place for discerning your next right thing.

Today I'll share a few things I think about when a public figure dies, prompted by the

death of Queen Elizabeth II.

This is not an episode about her life or legacy necessarily, but because so often the

news of the passing of a public figure, no matter how far removed from us, can be both

sobering and disruptive.

I thought it was worth an episode for us to pause and consider this strange dynamic of reckoning

with the loss of a public figure and why I believe it's important that we do so.

Listen in.

Last week on the morning of September 8th, I sat with my friend and lazy genius Kendra

co-working in a coffee shop, and I saw the headline that doctors were concerned about the

health of Queen Elizabeth II.

Just a few short hours later, when we had just finished lunch, but before dessert arrived,

we saw the news that the longest-raining British monarch in history had died at age 96.

I'm a woman in my mid-40s, who lives in the East Coast of the United States of America.

I've never lived in the UK or in any country in the Commonwealth, though I have visited

England exactly twice.

...