Today, someone forwarded me an email containing a provocative question. It asked: If today was the last day of your life, would you be satisfied with how you spent it? Or in other words, would you wish you could have more time to accomplish those things in life you really wanted to instead of just living day-by-day to standards not quite to your level?
I’ve been probing around for an answer to this for several hours now.
If today were the last day of my life, would I feel satisfied with what I did with it so far?
For the most part, yes, however, there are so many things I would feel sad that I didn’t get to do, namely take a trip to Australia, learn to scuba dive; turn one of my books into a screenplay; act in a movie, open a hair salon, drive cross-country in an RV and stop at every national park, and of course there’s the big one – to empty my hectic day job schedule so I can sleep in until at least six a.m.!
In all seriousness, we get this one life to live to our fullest, yet so many of us spend most of that time spinning in a whirlwind of worry, of what-ifs, of straddling challenges, of dodging obstacles. Few get to experience the freedom of living life out loud.
So this begs the question – how do we ensure we get to live the life we are all entitled to live when our choices might’ve taken us off course a bit?
Ask any motivational speaker or life coach and surely they’d advise to take actions that will lead you to your life goals. Mine are all rooted in freedom. That’s my ultimate goal – the freedom to create books and movies on my time. So for me, I feel like I’m heading in the right direction. I’ve got a clear goal and plan to get there. A writer needs to write, and I’ve got that covered! I just need to continue doing the work. The rest will fall into place.
For others, their goals might be more heavily rooted in charitable work or family or education, in which case, their actions would need to point them in that direction. A person seeking more family time, might benefit more from volunteering and reaching out to the community with family members rather than sitting passively in front of the television set for three hours at night.