L. Neil ThrussellNote: This article may trigger you if you or someone close to you has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Be warned!
For the sake of discussion and living a better life, let’s play a game. I am going to ask you to put real serious thought into this. The more real you make this experience, the greater the potential for deeper lessons, or a more meaningful take-away, could be for you!
You are sitting in your doctor’s office and they tell you, “You have been diagnosed with a terminal disease. This disease is a unique and relatively rare condition. You will suffer no pain or life crippling symptoms as the disease progresses through your body. One day you will go to sleep and won’t wake up the next morning. You will peacefully die in your sleep!”
The interesting thing about rare this disease, is that the medical system historically diagnoses it around the time you have one month to live. The tests to verify if you have the disease are 100% accurate and the fatality rate is 100% once diagnosed!
Lucky you! The doctor caught the disease earlier than most people get diagnosed and you have three months to live.
Stunned at the news you just received, you leave the doctor’s office and wander over to a park bench which is just a short distance from the office to compose your thoughts.
As you sit on the bench the rage of , “Why me?” subsides and you contemplate your next steps. You ask yourself these important questions:
- How are the relationships with my family and friends? Are they healthy?
- What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?
- What’s left on my bucket list?
- Do i even have a bucket list?
- Are there things that I have left unsaid, that I need to share?
- With my family?
- With my friends?
- With my community or the world?
- What are my regrets?
- Even minor regrets.
- What do I wish I should/would/could have done with my life?
- What are the things that I must say and do in the next 30 days?
Feel into these questions. Not from a place of shame guilt or obligation but from a place of anything can happen in life. Do you want to leave with regrets?
I know, personally, I don’t want to leave before my time is up and I definitely don’t want to leave with regrets. It is time to ensure while I am healthy that I don’t have a bunch of coulda, shoulda, and woulda’s.
I truly believe life is an adventure… Live it fully and to the best of your ability. Life begins outside of your comfort zone!
“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”
–David Groggins
What’s one thing you would do if you knew you only had a short time to live? We would love to hear your thoughts! Contact us at info@shindao.com or you can call us at 403-285-5266.
What I would do?
- I would put all my ‘still to do’ travel locations in a hat and pick one and then just go!
- I would give away all my possession now!
- I would do one thing on my bucket list a week!
- I would make sure I told all my friends I loved them and if I have already told them, I would tell them again and again!
- I would show up at my friends’ places announced and drag them out for breakfast (My fav go out meal)
- I would take more pictures of me and give them to my friends!
- I would have a wake, so my friends could say nice things to me while I was alive!
