I know I will die, but I do not know how long I will live.
This past month I crossed a milestone in my life. I have been alive on this planet 20,000 days … and I am still going!
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90: 12)
The book, 20,000 Days and Counting: The Crash Course For Mastering Your Life Right Now by Robert D. Smith prompted this awareness.
Robert poses, and I agree, that it is essential to understand that you and I have been dying since the day we were born. Also, if we learn how to die, we’ll know how to live; if we learn how to live, we’ll know how to die. Thus it is wise and acceptable to be impatient with ourselves to live each day to the fullest.
The short book offers various concrete ideas and exercises to embrace this awareness and live more unfettered (my interpretation!). As one who desires control and struggles with perfection, one suggestion is to become your own problem. Think to yourself … I am the problem. Yes, I am the problem. I am the problem! This thinking transforms the outside circumstances and brings them inside where you are inspired to act on them. You now have power. If you take on the role of a victim, you lose power and limit your creativity and imagination. However, when you bring the problem or situation inside yourself, you have control. You can shed light on it, reflect on it, do something about it.
This is a self-talk, thinking process. It is not a feeling process. Motivate yourself to think your way into feeling. Caution – you may tell yourself that being the problem feels negative. This is deceptive because the truth is; if you are the problem, you can take charge and work on it, solve it. This truth sets you free to assume responsibility, own the challenge, and create a resolution.
To apply this new way of thinking, consider that you were able to transport yourself one year into the future. With that perspective, look back on today … what advice would you give yourself right now? How can you become the problem in your current life? What changes would you make? What would you keep doing?
We have an amazing ability to overestimate what we can do in the next five years and totally underestimate what we can do in the next fifteen minutes.
Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
JEAN-P AUL SARTRE
FRENCH WRITER, PHILOSOPHER
B. JUNE 21, 1905, D. APRIL 15, 1980
(HE LIVED EXACTLY 27,327 DAYS)
Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.
JAMES DEAN
AMERICAN FILM ACTOR
B. FEBRUARY 8, 1931, D. SEPTEMBER 30, 1955
(HE LIVED EXACTLY 9,000 DAYS)
HOW MANY DAYS HAVE YOU BEEN ALIVE?
USE THE 20,000 DAYS CALCULATOR TO FIND OUT NOW.
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