Live your life every day as if it were your last day.!
How many times have you heard that ?. Most often than not we either don’t pay heed to what the person is saying or shun him as a philosophical lunatic. Today I want you to do things slightly differently. Imagine you get up in the morning just like every day and getting ready to start your day.Everything is just like everyday and you are doing the same things that you do every day. Watch the news on TV, read the newspaper, unconsciously say bye to your kids going to school, thinking about your work while still brushing your teeth, eating breakfast while still reading the newspaper and so on. You get the point.
Now imagine that someone whom you love and trust comes to talk to you and looks very disturbed. You ask them what’s the problem and you don’t get an answer but instead get a outburst of emotions and probably the person starts crying. You are really worried and ask them again on what the problem is. You are told that there was a mail from the hospital and you have been diagnosed with a terminal sickness and you have at best 1 month.! How would you feel? What would be your reaction? What would you do from there on? 1 month from that date everyone who is near and dear to you is gathered to pay their last respects to you.
Your Epitaph reads 1945 – 2014.
That’s all that is left of you. The year you were born, the year you died and the “DASH” in between. This Dash though small and almost invisible, summarises your entire life. What would you want people to describe this Dash? How would you like people to describe this Dash?
As Joseph Epstein put it “We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents, or the country of birth. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.” The Dash is a summary of all the choices you made in your life. As Victor Frankel put it in his book, Man’s search for meaning, man’s greatest freedom is the ability to choose our attitude towards life’s circumstances. Have you every thought about the choices you are making. No I’m not talking about the choices you make on which mobile to buy, which Television to buy or the food you eat. I’m talking about the deep-rooted choices we make often unconsciously. Choices about the books you read, the people you talk to, the friends you make, the choice of attitude you have towards life. For example when someone shares a new idea with you which you have heard before, do you immediately react by saying “Ah that does not work” Or ” It’s not easy to do that”. Have you ever wondered why you react in this way. Over the years we have been conditioned to “react” to external stimuli without even taking a moment to think about it and then “respond” instead of “react”. The basic difference between a response and a reaction is that a response is thought through while a reaction is instantaneous almost in auto pilot mode. A perfect example is how sometime when you call a customer service centre and you receive pre designed responses from people on the phone no matter what you tell them. This happens because the people behind the phones are trained to pick up on the most common types of issues and respond in a certain way. Just like this we have been conditioned over the years to react in ways which we have trained ourselves. Obviously if the choices you make don’t change, the results won’t change either.
What is your Dash going to say about you? Will it speak of someone who was born, existed and died or someone who was born, lived, made a difference and will be remembered for a long time after you have left this planet. Watch this beautiful video and think about it!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsY6UrFIsNs&w=625&h=425&rel=0]