我很抱歉，請原諒我The Last Breath of Mark: A Story of Triumph and Tiredness

Mark was a man of laughter. Jovial, disarming, magnetic. People often said the room brightened when he walked in. Yet, behind that beaming charisma was a man driven by something quieter but far more urgent—a relentless need to ascend. Each step of his life was a rung on an invisible ladder. He chased promotions, accolades, recognition. And he got them all.

Mark knew how to win.
What he didn’t know was what it cost.

In his 20s, he outshone everyone in his circle.
In his 30s, he built an empire.
In his 40s, he outgrew the people who built it with him.
And in his 50s, his phone still buzzed—but only with transactions, not tenderness.

He had learned to use people—not out of malice, but out of a belief that everything was fuel. Relationships became resources. Friendships were levers. Even love, he believed, was a strategic advantage if timed well.

But in the stillness of his 57th year, something changed.
Mark’s body gave out.

The diagnosis was fast, aggressive, and irreversible.
And when the buzz of achievement went silent,
there was only one heartbeat that remained beside him—his mother’s.

Every day, she came.
Not with judgment.
Not with questions.
But with warm soup, a damp cloth, and stories from the past that only mothers remember.

At first, Mark pushed her away.

He scoffed at her simple comforts.
Told her he could pay for nurses, nutritionists, the best there was.
He reminded her that he didn’t need anything from anyone anymore.

But the body does what the mind cannot.
It slows.
It humbles.
It listens.

In the final week of his life, Mark’s voice grew thin. One evening, his mother, exhausted, fell asleep at his bedside, her head resting gently beside his hand.

Mark stared at the ceiling, then at the soft lines etched into his mother’s face.
They were not lines of age.
They were lines of memory, of waiting, of unconditional love.

He didn’t want to wake her.

So in a whisper only the walls could hear, he said:

“我很抱歉，請原諒我。
I am very sorry.
Please forgive me.”

And with that final breath, Mark was no longer chasing the next level.

He had returned home.

“我很抱歉，請原諒我”

The Adventurer’s Reckoning: A Coaching Reflection

What if success was never the summit, but the mirror that reveals who we’ve become?

Mark’s story is not uncommon. The adventurer archetype lives in many of us—driven, determined, destined for more. We strive, we push, we win. But often, we do so with a narrow lens, mistaking momentum for meaning.

Coaching doesn’t stop the adventurer from journeying.
But it does offer a companion for the trail.

One who walks with them, not ahead or behind.
One who asks not where they’re going—but why.
One who listens for what’s not being said.
And notices the trail of footsteps left behind.

Mark’s reckoning came too late to rebuild what was lost.
But for those still climbing—coaching offers a sacred pause:

• To examine the compass, not just the map.

• To reconnect with the voices that matter.

• To honour not just performance, but presence.

• To ask: “What am I really chasing?”

In the coaching space, we don’t demand answers.
We make room for them to emerge.

Because sometimes, the greatest shift isn’t in the summit reached…
But in the soul remembered.