The gift of dying

One of the greatest gifts, I've given myself, is to realize I was going to die.

To know that death is inevitably, opens our hearts. All your obstacles, all your beliefs of what you can and what you can't do, all your stories about who you are and who you are not, will not matter on your death bed. The question that uncomfortably fills your mind, isn't “Am I good enough?”. Because when you are dead, there won't be anybody, who will open a little box with a note that says “You were good enough” or “You weren't good enough”. It really doesn't matter, when you are laying on your death bed. It's questions like “What did I spend my life on?” that will fill your mind. “Did I live a life through fear or did I live a life through love to myself and to others?” With other words: “Did I spend my life on love or fear? Did I spent it on drama or peace?” In that lays my absolute greatest motivation.

Everything that seems so important for you right now, will disappear. Everything you've had and wants to accomplish, all your relationships, all your daily dramas, challenges and worries will disappear with you. So why spend your short life destroying yourself? You are like a lightning bug in the night. Your life shines quickly and then you are gone. This is one of the most inspiring thoughts in this life. You are here – short and intensive. Why not spend your life to the fullest while you are here? Why not look your fear in the eyes and meet your life?

Thinking that life has a end, puts all your false expectations and detours in another perspective. What is it that you fear? What is really the problem?

Scary thought? Yes, but true. It's the reality.

You can choose, to open the door silently and walk around slowly to not arouse any attention or provoke any judgments. Or you can open the door of life and loudly, slam the door behind you and show yourself and the world that you are here. Let this sink in; you are only yourself. It's you against you. Everything you hate and everything you love will disappear. All your dreams – accomplished or not. All your destroying thoughts and long, scary stories why you can't do this and that, will disappear too.

So what is your excuse, of not being here to the fullest? What is your excuse, of not being here with all parts of you? And give the world the gift of you being you, of you being here and you being here to the fullest?

Sometimes I imagine my funeral. I know, you might think, I'm a bit over the line here. It isn't a pleasant thought at all - but let me explain. I am imagining, how others would remember me. Of what qualities they'd think I had. Of how I lived my life. Of what I accomplished. What kind of person I was. Did I make a difference. They won't tell about the clothes I wore, which car I drove or how much money I've made – because all that wouldn't matter anymore. All of that disappeared with me. What's left, is the impact I've made for the people around me. How I made them feel and how I treated them.

How would you like to be remembered?

You have a choice. You can choose to open up or close down. You can close down and keep your focus on surviving this life. You can continue to look at yourself and your surroundings as things, you need to fix. You can continue to chase something, something outside of you, that will give you what you're looking for. You can continue, convincing yourself, that when you find the right love, the right job, your “right place” - you can finally be happy.

You can also choose to open up and be fully honest with yourself and realize that your happiness lies within you. And realize that the first step of getting there, is the decision of throwing yourself into the journey and find it. Because who knows, what could happen, if we give ourselves into something, that we somehow know, is true for us? Nobody knows, but isn't it worth a try?

You don't know, when you are going to die. It could be tomorrow or in many, many years. You'll never know and it's up to you, to make your life worth living. You can choose, what your life should contain in the years between your date of birth and your date of death. You can try, to convince yourself that it's others, who decides, what your living years should contain. But who on earth should you blame, if you never got that life, you wished for? Who has possession over that kind of power? Your family? The community? Others opinion of you? Sickness? Money? The weather? Time? Your talents? Your education? Everything you got too much of? Everything you got too little of? Your busy schedule, your partner, your mother?

No other than yourself has that kind of power. Deep inside you have a choice. Your life gives you constant challenges. How you react to those challenges, is up to you. And yes... There will be challenges, that seems impossible. But no one can take away your choice. No one can take away your insight. Your insight of those things, that is happening to you, isn't “against” you. It just happens. You just have to find the meaning and the reason behind it.

Death is ahead of you. But until then life is a game. You can choose to play present on your own terms or choose to play absent, settling down for less, on terms, you can try to convince yourself, others have chosen for you. Because in the end, life is all about choices. If you don't take control over your life, you unconsciously choose, to let others choose for you.

If you were to die in one year and I asked you, what you would be spending your last year on, you will probably mention so many different dreams and desires. You would probably want to go travel some more, spend more time with your family, learn something you've always wanted to learn, go see a long lost friend, tell someone you love them.... You would LIVE! You would be fearless! Why wait until it's almost over? Why aren't you during, what you truly want to do right now? Because in reality, you don't actually know, if you only got one year left to live in.

Death gives your heart strength. What are you waiting for? Who would you be today, if tomorrow never came? What excuses wouldn't matter anymore? What is there to fear, if you no longer had to wait for “someday”? What if you no longer had to wait, for something to be different, than what it is right now?