@giantbear thank you for the inspirational post and i'm sorry to hear about what happened to your colleague's friend. It's these things that put life into perspective as you say.

About the questions you ask yourself, i can take that a little further. Just try, once every few months to answer this one before you go to bed:
"If i would die this night, would i be content with life as i have lived it?"

Don't do this every night because you'll go insane. But every once in a while it will make you do a 180 and re-evaluate where you are, where your going, and with whom you're going there.

Peace.