There’s this site that has 36 questions and it’ll apparently make you fall in love with anyone. I kept it bookmarked in my inbox because I knew some day, I would be stuck for a topic, but I didn’t read any of the questions yet. I went through them and stopped at 19 (though all of them are thought-provoking) this one hit me, hard:
If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
I would laugh louder, dream bigger, adventure harder, relax faithfully, meditate purposefully…basically everything we are encouraged to do to live a full life right now.
It’s so easy to say, “Oh, I have my whole life to do that, it can wait.” Or maybe you’re thinking, “I have my whole life, I don’t want to screw up my relationships, finances, others’ opinions of me, etc,” so you don’t do anything at all and just use the insanity definition of “I won’t change anything but maybe the outcome will be different.”
The interesting thing about this question is the deadline. One year. That puts some immediacy on it. And forces you to look at what’s really important to you. Think about the things that you’d change if you only had a year. Those are the responses that are important to you.
Personally, I would speak my truth more, try to erase uncertainty in my choices, re-learn how to play guitar, make something big (like a quilt), meditate by a river preferably with a waterfall that I could jump off of, cultivate deep passion, travel around to meet you lovely lady readers of mine, take lots of pictures and actually print them out.
Some things are project goals that I can check off, others are maintenance goals that have to be worked at each day.
I know there would be some people that would run away and hide or who would make all the necessary preparations (which is much more likely what I’d do) so your friends and family are set up.
I’d really like to think that I’d be brave enough to find my voice and my feet and make some kind of impact, even if it’s something small. There’s 365 days to do something, anything.
So if you only had a year, would you change anything?
PS: need some ideas to get your change started? Molly Mahar has eight ways to improve your quality of life (super simple things) and I have a list of people I like to get inspiration from when I’m stuck here.
