Do you need to fear dying before you are willing to live?

What if I asked you “What matters to you?”

You would probably come up with a whole list of answers based on security, safety, and responsibility.  Or societal norms such as business or career success expressed as a certain position gained or amount of money earned ….a whole bunch of “shoulds”

How would your answer change if you knew you only had one year to live?

You might use words such as spend more time with loved ones, experience something new, make amends, love deeply and die without regrets.

Yesterday I went to visit a dear friend in the hospital.   She had no knowledge of any cancer that ravaged her body 8 weeks ago.  This week she has been given 2 months to live at the most.

Last month I started working with a man who was grieving the loss of his wife last year.  The time between her cancer diagnosis and her death was one week.   His whole world had been turned upside down.  He’s come to me to help him get some clarity around how to move forward in a world without her.

As these events were very close together, I have been shaken to my core about my own life and what really matters to me.  I spent a whole morning in reflection the day after that hospital visit. Nothing on my to-do list made any sense anymore so I sat down to write to sort out my thoughts.   I am sharing my insight in hopes that it helps you.

Both these people have done everything right, good education, great career, financial security, careful planning for the future.  But the one thing they didn’t plan for was how unpredictable life can be.  What they both would have done differently if they had known.

Well, we don’t get to know.

Let me be blunt here….Life’s a crap shoot.  And like a gambler, most people think that they are going to live in the game forever.   And we all look at gamblers and shake our heads and say “They should have known better.  How could they have let that happen?”

But we don’t see is how we are gambling with the gift of our own life (or that of a loved one) assuming that we have forever…. to spend more time with family and friends, to change careers for something that feeds your soul or serves a higher purpose, to quit your business, to start a business, to retire early,  to travel around the world, to leave a legacy …. to live, to love, to experience, to serve…to matter.

Last year my best friend found out she had breast cancer, did chemo, had her one breast removed and is now cancer free.  She had a lot of time to reflect during that year from hell.  We talked every week about “What matters to her now”  Post-cancer she has chosen semi-retirement.  With her new spare time, she spends more time with family and works on creative projects that make her feel alive and joyful.  She is having so much more fun then she allowed herself before.  She does these creative projects because she is inspired to create beautiful things. Not because they will lead to a source of income.  But as she has moved into this joyful energy, doors have opened to sell her creations at a top dollar.

Before cancer, she would have never considered semi-retirement.  As being more successful and proving herself in her current business seems so important.  And proving herself was based on monetary success.   After the fear of dying…what mattered to her and her priorities changed significantly.   What might have been available for her if she had made this choice 10 years ago?

So how does this affect you?

What choices and decisions have you been putting off gambling that you have years to figure it out or make that change.   Do you need to personally experience the fear of dying before you are willing to really live?  I hope not, because sometimes you don’t even get that chance.  An accident or sudden illness take even that from you.

In a book called “On Living” by Kerry Egan, a hospice chaplain tells the stories of what people talk about on their death bed.  She discovered she’d been granted a powerful chance to witness firsthand what she calls the “spiritual work of dying”—the work of finding or making meaning of one’s life, the experiences it’s contained and the people who have touched it, the betrayals, wounds, unfinished business, and unrealized dreams.  This isn’t a book about dying—it’s a book about living.

And I am not saying to throw all caution to the wind and spend your retirement funds on a trip around the world next year.   Or quit your current job and go work in a soup kitchen to feed the poor.

What I am asking you is to look at the big picture of where you are right now and not work blindly toward goals that only serve you 20 years out year after year.   I will look at living when I have achieved “X”.

Questions to consider

I’m asking you to consider what really matters to you.  In my initial intake questionnaire with clients who have hired me to help them make crossroads type decisions the first 3 questions I ask are:

1) For you to consider your life to have been satisfying and well lived, what accomplishments or measurable events must occur in your lifetime?

2) If there was a secret passion in your life, something you wouldn’t consider telling anyone for fear they might laugh at you, what would it be?

3) What’s missing in your life, the presence of which would have your life be more fulfilling?

These and other questions help me assess your core values.  Core values are what you need to live fully as much as air and water.  We then work together, to put parts of these answers into their goals and action plans for the next 6-12 months.   You start to work making meaning of your life now.

If you have been putting off making important decisions in your business, career or life because you think you have lots more time, consider the stories of the people I mentioned that ran out of time.

If you would like to explore what is possible for more living now, then take me up on my offer of a 30-minute Complimentary Clarity Strategy Session at http://professionalcoachingcompany.com/clarity-session/.

For me personally

This wake-up call has reminded me that since 2008 I have felt called to serve as a spiritual minister at a hospice.  In 2008 my mother spent 10 days in a Florida hospice before she passed.  Those 10 days started to heal our family from the damage done by the trauma of her illness and lack of sensitivity and solutions from the medical community.  If I could do that for just one family I would consider my life to have been well lived, to have mattered.

I have taken the minister training but have always felt like next year would be a good year to start the hospice training.  It’s been 10 years.  Today I picked up the phone to see what the hospice training involves.  What one action can you take today to move what matters to you forward?