WHAT SHOULD YOURS SAY
Friday, Nov. 8, 2019
Who wants their epitaph to read: he led a safe, ordinary average life?
Average, OK, tolerable, reasonable, in the ballpark? Sure thing …
Seriously though, how would you describe your life, or want it described by others when you are gone?
Everyone has a fear of death but doesn’t have to live in doubt or afraid of the next minute of living while you wait.
Some people think we need to think happy thoughts and happiness will spontaneously combust. I don’t share that view. While a positive attitude is essential, I believe actions that point us in a happy direction, which keep us on a comfortable path – those matter more, or most. Fundamental to a ‘state of happiness,’ for some people that might be hosting a great party, for someone else, it will be achieving a challenging goal – for others, it might be taking an action that contributes to someone else being happier, toward someone else achieving their difficult goal. Where we are going and how we get there are essential to us, but few things matter as much or have more impact than what it is we did to help someone else along the way.
A day without laughter is a day wasted. – Charlie Chaplin
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death. – Robert Fulghum
I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry. – Cat Stevens
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. – Kurt Vonnegut
Most of us, I believe, would describe many elements of our life as average, OK, tolerable, and ‘in the ballpark’ – norms of normal, descriptions for expectations of happy balance with minimal extremes.
But what do we want?
Do we not want: exceptional, fantastic, mind-blowing, expectation exceeding, hit it out of the park lives?
I’m not suggesting we do a bunch of chest-thumping and self-back-patting exercises – but rather that we raise our expectations. A lot. Not a little, not 10%, but 100%.
How we can do this?
Is it easy?
Fantastic things rarely are. You only have one life. What do you want from it?
Defining happiness, how does that work – and what are you prepared to commit to it?
It strikes me that being happy, if it isn’t automatic, ought to be by design – something we design with words or pictures to visualize, so we have something to shoot for, and so we realize when we’ve arrived. That makes sense, doesn’t it?
I want extreme happiness – not expecting it to be found in one thing, activity, or person – some of the time. All the time is fantasy. I think extreme happiness is worthy of extremes of risk. Not all the time, but worth the risk without question.
Who wants their epitaph to read: he led a safe, ordinary average life?
Not me.
Everyone fears THE END - so taunt death, laugh at death, live loud, and laugh hard while you wait!
