Showing posts with label living a life of meaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label living a life of meaning. Show all posts

Sunday, October 10, 2010

If you have just one day more to live?

Let me tell you a true story. A certain rich lady decided to build a house for her single mum. She poured all her resources into that project. However, she was bothered about the generous attitude of her mother towards others such that she stopped giving her mum enough money. As she stopped that monthly allowance which she usually gives her mum. In the process of time, she fell ill, unable to support herself financially. The Daughter kept building the Mansion. House was close to completion, when the Mum’s health worsened.  She was admitted to the hospital on the very last week that she was to move in to the new house.  Even though her belongings had been moved into the Mansion ahead of her, she died at the hospital without living in the Mansion that her daughter built. I know you all want to stone that rich construction company lady but wait till you read this all. 
How much will you prepare if you suddenly realized that you have just one day more to live? If you realized that you are on a timed machine and everything seems collapsing all around you? If what you see is reducing and you need to reduce your life into just one basic goal. What will that thing be? What will you want to do with the rest of your life? What will you like to be remembered for? How do you want to spend your last days, your last moments on this planet?  Oh! probably hanging out with loved ones. Kisses, hugs, crying over shoulders and more. 
I love to go to the Airport. And my favorite location is the Departure. I get to see people hugging and crying  each other. They are emotional, often sober because someone they love will be leaving for some time. Probably for a very long time. This feeling tends to break people. It reduces them into their indices. It tends to humble  us into deeper connection and re-connection. There is this hope of reunion that seems far off. There is this sadness of separation that looms all around. These components are the very parallax of our real life. And it does not matter who you are. It matters how much you live. How truly you gave. If you are a business person, Coach or even Parent. It matters, how we spend the time we spend with people. Yes i know people will never have enough of us. They can really love us into inaction and mere hanging outs. They just want us around them always. But its not the quantity of time spent as it is the quality of heart therein.

Assuming you are a Leader, and you are with your mentees, how much will you invest into them? If you are a Soldier on a troupe, with some stranger in the wild War zone, how will you fight , defend and make them remember you in such face of death? If it is your very last visit to a place. If it is your very last report to hand in. If it is your very last assignment or your last examination. If it is your very last time to grab a coffee or the last time to hang out with someone and talk. How differently will you handle it? How much will you put into  such situation? How much of yourself are you going to pour out? Now, i know you are probably asking me the same question. I think...you know your own heart. And you  alone can really tell if you are giving your all... because in the final analysis. God will test our hearts and not our smiles or our hugs. And it does not matter if your all is not enough for others... what matter most is this: Are you investing your all?

Like the story of the Lady i opened this writing with. You may be giving your all in the wrong direction. Her mum did not tell her that the most important thing to her was not the Mansion. So she gave into the wrong thing even though she gave her all. I am still learning this myself... Assuming you are coming into your last decade on this side of existence and you were told that this is the one last business you need to do to wrap up your season, will you invest your all into it? What if it is your last job interview? Will you hire your successor with a visionary eyes? Above all, this is not a mere question. It is not about what you will live to do? It is a question of what you will really live for?
 The answer to the question is relative...the answer you get is a pointer to something more larger than life itself. Something more bigger than you. And if you have never critically given this a thought. Please do so. This is because there is an urgency of purpose which our daily routine tends to becloud and rob us from. The answer you arrive at is always personal and it must be. It must be intimate, connecting you to, and with, your life calling. Its a question of purpose...If you are not living life to the full, this is the time to start doing so.  There is still a chance for redirection. Think about that. There is still hope for this very day. If you were called in and told that this is your last hour. That you just have this one day more to live...what will you do with it?