Life and Death – Part 2
Last time we discovered how Life and Death are intimately linked, and we said that it is very important for us to live life to the full. If you don’t know what it means to squeeze every ounce of living out of your life, set some time aside to carry out the following exercise:
The Last Day
Imagine that you knew you were going to die in exactly 24 hours. Let that scenario sink in, then ask yourself the following questions…
- What would you do in the next 24 hours that you hadn’t previously planned to do?
- What plans have you already made for the next 24 hours that you would now cancel?
- Which people would you make every effort to spend time with?
- What specific things would you say to these people which you wouldn’t otherwise have said?
Once you have answered these questions, you will soon realise whether or not you are living life to the full.
If you are then you probably wouldn’t do anything different over the next 24 hours – you would continue with your present plans and see the people you have arranged to see.
If you are not living life to the full, however, the chances are that you would totally rearrange the next 24 hours so that you can ditch the trivial plans and spend time doing something more meaningful.
Now, imagine once again that you have just 24 hours left, and write down a list of ten things you wish you had done during your lifetime but never actually got around to. Here are a few examples to start the ball rolling:
I Wish I Had…
Visited the Grand Canyon
Prepared for the financial well-being of my loved ones
Climbed a mountain
Taken my partner on a second honeymoon
Been less judgmental
Helped people less fortunate than myself
You get the idea. Once you have a list of ten or more of these things which you would have liked to have done (and not before), you may continue…
Now that you have decided exactly what you would have like to have achieved during your lifetime, you have a perfect list of goals which you can now pursue with enthusiasm.
At this point, some of you will scoff. ‘Life is not that easy!’ many of you will exclaim. ‘You can’t just make a list of goals and then expect to achieve them. You need money to achieve some of these goals, and money takes work, and work takes time!’
We too used to think along similar lines. We used to think that life was difficult – that the only way to survive, let alone thrive, was to work hard and long. We used to think that you needed luck to be happy and do all the things you wanted to do.
But we were wrong, and in the final part of this series we will explain why.
