February 26, 2008

• Don't Wait for Only One Week to Live....

  A recent Featured Question was, "What would you do if you only have a week to live?"...I answered it and then spent some time browsing what others said....and then it made me think....

  Why do we wait to do these things until we only have a short time left to do them?  Many of the answers involved telling people we love them, spending quality time with family or friends, getting affairs in order, apologizing to people we've hurt, traveling the world....so why don't we just do this in our everyday ordinary lives?  Why aren't these things on our everyday to do list?  With the exception of spending life savings on extravagant gifts or trips, these things are not difficult to do or accomplish.  Most don't even cost any real money.  Instead, they are things that we simply push to the bottom of the importance list - when we've just proven that in the grand scheme of life - they actually are the most important, because those are the things we'd want to do in the last moments we have.

  The fact is, any one of us could be gone tomorrow.  A delivery guy dropped off flowers for my neighbor at my house because they weren't home on Sunday.  I wondered if it was her birthday or anniversary.  It turns out the flowers were for condolences....her sister was struck by an Amtrak express train the day before and killed instantly.  I'm not even making this up.  One minute she's on the cellphone with her husband, saying, "Gotta run, honey, train is here! Love you!" and the next - she is gone.

  My neighbor told me yesterday she spent most of the day putting together picture boards to put up at the funeral home.  She said that she found it oddly therapeutic.  Instead of crying over the loss, she found her heart swelling with memories of good times - finding that she felt very lucky to have shared so much with her sister and had her in her life - even if it was cut short long before it should have been. 

  I think every Xangan who answered or thought about what they would have answered for that Featured Question should write it down on their to-do list for this week.  And if it is something you CAN do this week, or this month....do it.  Don't put it off.  None of us know how long we are here for.  And most of us won't get a heads up a week before we head for the light......so make your list....and check it off....and live life in a way that you don't have a "to do" list before you die.  

   

  (My original answer to the question....prompting all this....)

  If you knew you only had one week to live, what would you do with that time?

  Clean my closets and basement because once I'm dead, I don't want anyone finding anything they really shouldn't....lol

   

   

  • 10:58 am
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