I’ve been struggling with just general life stuff over the last few weeks when I discovered what I’m calling my deathbed perspective. To give you an idea, they’re not much different or extraordinary as anyone else’s:
- How I can get out of the job I’m at?
- How do I navigate someone I can’t stand working with?
- How do I lift my girlfriend up when she’s down?
- How do I make it all better for those close to me?
- How do I enjoy life while still living and working in it?
- How am I going to make enough money so I can pursue what I really want to do?
- How will I understand why my mom has just forgotten to call me anymore?
These are the things coming up for me as I sat down to meditate this morning. Something pretty monumental came up. I decided to picture myself on my deathbed surrounded by loved ones and the thought came, “What really matters when I’m about to die?”.
I loved this question. I dove deep into it. I embraced it. I pictured the room, myself lying weak and tired on the bed, flowers, balloons, loved ones patiently waiting for the moment while they passed the time on their phones. Sounds morbid right? It gave me a sense of peace I can’t really describe. Here’s why… When you are about to die, there’s no more future planning…it’s over. So, what really matters in that moment? It effectively erases 99% of the shit we all struggle with on the daily basis and for me personally, it made things really really simple and the instructions were pretty straightforward.
When I die this is what I want:
- To KNOW that my life here mattered and I had an impact on others
- That as I leave earth and on to whatever’s next that I did my part to leave this place better than I found it
- It’s that I took every advantage to live life to the fullest extent possible and serve as many as I can along the way
- What truly matters to me is that I made some small impact on someone, something, or someplace that was positive and will carry on.
- Did I leave everything of value to those who need it.
What I don’t want or don’t care about when I die:
- The title of the job I last had
- The amount of money in my bank account
- The cool toys I bought and played with
- The people I had serving me
- The arguments I had to win
- The lessons I chose not to learn
- How strong I was
- All of my accomplishments stacked in a tall pile
- How many women I had sex with
- This list could go on infinitum…
Integrating the Deathbed Perspective
Stepping back and looking at the big picture is really important for me. Bring myself to the end and remind myself of what’s truly important. I needed this today and everyday. We still live in the world and daily problems are daily problems but when if I can find a way to approach them with the end game in mind my perspective towards them is shifted dramatically. Suddenly winning that fight at work with the coworker you hate doesn’t matter so much. In fact, the hate towards that coworker becomes pretty infantile too, when you take the death bed perspective to it. Everything falls into place and to be quite frank, in my meditation I was really really old and so all the things I thought were going to break me, obviously didn’t, and they are lessons, not punishments. Everything is a fucking lesson.
How will you change how you look at the world today?
Comments are closed.