Notes From The Heart - Memento Mori
Continuing the new feature Notes From The Heart (wisdom for me, not from me), here's what showed up in my morning pages this week:
Memento mori.
Remember death.
One day I will die. I will stop existing as a distinct person on the planet (barring the legal fiction of person as my affairs are wrapped up) and instead will exist as a memory in people's heads and hearts. Hopefully for good and uplifting reasons.
It seems to me then, that the only questions that matter are:
1. What do I want to leave behind? ... and, of course,
2. How do I want to live before I go?
What's the point of stressing? Do or do not do. That's it. Some leave plenty. And some leave a gentle breeze, the world barely disturbed by their passing. Me? I will leave something. I already have. A book. Little humans. People carrying me in their hearts...
And...?
The best is yet to come ...
Wait.
Is there a better/best? That's just a value judgment ... driven largely by the values instilled from my past. So, what if there was just kind and unkind? and everything else really is ... subjective?
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So there is no "best" yet to come, because there is no best. Our past is random. Little things that add up over time. What if Andrew had picked on someone else that fateful day in grade 6? Or what if someone had stood up for me? I think my whole life would be different.
So when I chase some result because I think it's better, perhaps I would be better served by remembering that one day I will die, and that there is no better.
We all only ever have one question to deal with:
In each moment, how do we want to spend our wild and beautiful life?
What if, instead of chasing better, the secret to happiness is remembering that the good old days are right now?
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