For some reason death is a topic lately..
I guess I'm getting to an age where people I know have started dying.
It's happened three times in the past two years.
Always the words..they were too young.
When I hear those words, I always think of a little girl named daisy who was seven when she died..
That was too young.
Health concerns raise their ugly heads...
You start to feel the creep of time..days, minutes and hours.
This may be what inspires the so called mid life crisis.
Let me tell you..
It isn't a mid life crisis...
It's a mid life reality check.
It may seem out of control..when what it really is, is an expression of longing to live out the inner life that they may have been repressing to be "productive members of society"
Then one day...people you know start dying..and suddenly life is not a endless commodity.
The reality of limited time sets in...
And you look around and say..how did I get here!
Hopefully that is a good how did I.
A 'good family, productive work..further than you thought you'd be' how did I.
Not a 'broke down in Hoboken with a dead hooker and a flat' how did I....
When you see your how did I...
you can do one of four things...if it's bad..change it..whatever that means.
If it's good...keep it...recognising all the gifts you have been given.
..or, bad keep it, too scared to change..good, throw it away for the sake of change because you bought into a societal lie about status and image.
Choices.
What I have found it really all comes to is this.
What makes it okay to die, at whatever age..
Is that you feel you have fulfilled your life's purpose..
I think that is what people mean when they say someone died too young.
They mean that perhaps that person has not fulfilled their purpose.
That's why people go insane in their 40's and 50's.
It's 'twenty years of useful life left' syndrome.
While Everyone's individual purpose is different..
Like that great philosopher Arnold once said...
Do what makes you happy..regardless of how crazy it may seem to someone else.
How we implement our purpose is the same.
We are all dying...the time left is invisible..no man knows the day or the hour.
It could be one hour..or 40 years.
Are you going to waste the hour?
The month?
The year?
Playing fast and loose with time helps no one.
I will not let my life be a legacy of untapped potential.
Unfulfilled promise..
Acceptance of a life of pain and heart ache.
Or apathy.
Every minute is potential.
Our purpose may be quiet.
Maybe it's intimate.
Or our purpose may be larger, with a communal or societal impact.
Either way..
Every person or interaction is an opportunity.
The opportunity to be the person who makes things better..in whatever sphere you enter.
Be the person who lifts people.
Who cares.
Who encourages.
Be the person who helps others find and fulfill THEIR purpose..
Real leaders create leaders.
Because we can sit here and talk about change.
Or we can be the change.
We can complain about a lack of community.
Or we can help create a sense of community.
This is down to the cellular level.
Down to every thought..
Every intention..
Every individual act.
It can begin in the next breath..
In your next thought..
In your next determination.
And it builds.
Change comes one compassionate act at a time..
Our purpose is fulfilled when we begin.
Chris out
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