How to discover what your life is all about
Here's my trick (a little morbid, but trust me, it works!).
Suppose you just learned from your doctor that you're about to die in 6 months.
Even worse: Suppose your doctor told you that SIX MONTHS AGO, and that today is the day.
As you're a few hours from passing to the other side, you consider gravely and seriously what you have learned in your life that could be of use to another human being.
Finally, you take a deep breath and you say: "You know, in all my years of living, there's one thing I learned that seems so valuable that I thought I would share it with you today.
When I look at the world we live in, it doesn't seem to know or understand the secret that I have discovered in my life, and this is why I must share it with you today.
If you could pass on that secret knowledge to all your friends, family, coworkers and children, I will feel I have at least contributed my humble part to the building of a better world. So without further due, here is the one incredibly important thing I learned in my life:
...
In your case, what would it be?
And I think it doesn't depend on how smart you are.
Even someone like Forrest Gump, for example, can teach something worth remembering.
He said to his sweetheart Jenny: "I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is."
In other words, if you have love, you have success. But having success doesn't necessarily mean you have love.
The movie The Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage and the (amazingly beautiful) Tea Leoni, captures the same idea.
Ultimately, I think every human life is important, because we all carry a certain message which we broadcast to the world every day.
Imagining yourself at the end of your life might help to clarify what your life is all about, and hence can help you lead such a life that by the time you're about to utter your key message one last time, the world is all ears and all eager to hear you out.
Suppose you just learned from your doctor that you're about to die in 6 months.
Even worse: Suppose your doctor told you that SIX MONTHS AGO, and that today is the day.
As you're a few hours from passing to the other side, you consider gravely and seriously what you have learned in your life that could be of use to another human being.
Finally, you take a deep breath and you say: "You know, in all my years of living, there's one thing I learned that seems so valuable that I thought I would share it with you today.
When I look at the world we live in, it doesn't seem to know or understand the secret that I have discovered in my life, and this is why I must share it with you today.
If you could pass on that secret knowledge to all your friends, family, coworkers and children, I will feel I have at least contributed my humble part to the building of a better world. So without further due, here is the one incredibly important thing I learned in my life:
...
In your case, what would it be?
And I think it doesn't depend on how smart you are.
Even someone like Forrest Gump, for example, can teach something worth remembering.
He said to his sweetheart Jenny: "I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is."
In other words, if you have love, you have success. But having success doesn't necessarily mean you have love.
The movie The Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage and the (amazingly beautiful) Tea Leoni, captures the same idea.
Ultimately, I think every human life is important, because we all carry a certain message which we broadcast to the world every day.
Imagining yourself at the end of your life might help to clarify what your life is all about, and hence can help you lead such a life that by the time you're about to utter your key message one last time, the world is all ears and all eager to hear you out.
posted by Super Peter at 10:01 PM
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