The death of a friend this week had me receiving several messages and texts from well meaning friends wondering what happened to him. I reflected on this and noticed that when someone dies, one of the first things people always ask is, “What happened? How did they die?” It’s like this mandatory question we have to ask to define our own mortality, as if simply knowing how another person died somehow protects us from succumbing to that same fate. We need reassurance that that won’t happen to us. Until it does. And by then, we won’t know it actually happened to us anyway. It seems more people are consumed with not dying than they are with actually living and building the life they've dreamed of.
A year or so ago a good friend introduced me to a tool that
made me incredibly more aware of how I spend my time. It’s called a Memento
Mori, which translated means "remember your mortality" or
"remember that you will die". It's basically a chart of small boxes,
52 across and 80 or so down. Each block on the chart represents a week of life.
The 52 boxes across are the weeks in one year, and the 80 or so down are the
years. I think I put 95 years on mine! I have it hanging on my bedroom wall,
staring at me. Sometimes I am able to ignore it for periods of time but I
always come back to it. When I was first introduced to this concept I
absolutely balked. I think my exact words were, "Are you kidding me,
Johnny?? That is absolutely fucking morbid!" But it stayed on my mind, and
the more I thought about it throughout the day, the more I became enamored with
the idea. I realized it's not supposed to be a solemn gloom and doom look at
what little time you have left, but a celebration and awareness of what you've
done, and continue to do, in the time you've lived. Of course, by the end of
that day I had made my own Memento Mori.
As the weeks pass I look at the little blocks that I've coloured in black and think to myself, "Was this week a good representation of how I want to live my life? Did I do things that made me happy? Was I kind? Did I love? Did the people I care about know I cared? Was that time spent in front of the TV doing nothing worth that box of my life? Were the feelings of fear and self doubt worth wasting one single iota of that precious time on? Was worrying about whether I would be judged for my decisions or actions concerning my own life worth one second of my thoughts?" Sometimes the answers to these questions are not what I had hoped. Some weeks I have spent time in a heap of self pity, some weeks I have spent time feeling bitter and lonely instead of grateful for all of the wonder in my life. Each week I learn something about myself and I become more aware of the direction I'd like to steer myself in to make my best life possible. Looking at that chart makes the sometimes all-consuming fixations seem really trivial, and completely puts things back in perspective. I look at those little blocks and think of all the time I spent fretting about my hair, my weight, my clothes. I look to where I was 14 years old and I felt like my world was ending, and I truly wanted it to end, and now I can't remember why I felt so hopeless. I can guarantee it was about things that weren't going my way, people that didn't act/react the way I wanted them to, and things I didn't have in my life. Some of those things I could control and some I couldn't. Back then it was everything but 26 years later I see that it wasn't all I made it out to be. It’s so obvious now that my mind was stuck on what I wanted and not on the wonderful things I already had.
Not long after being introduced to the memento mori, I watched the movie Finding Joe, about The Hero's Journey as explained by Joseph Campbell. One line in the movie really caught my attention: "One day we will all be dust and the janitor will be buried beside the CEO." That was the most truth I had ever heard about death in my life. It wasn't sugar coated. We are all going to die, not one of us will be spared, and isn't death a great equalizer among us? In death we're all the same, but what are you doing in your life that sets you apart? Are you following your bliss, or do you come home from a job you hate and watch TV until it's time to go to sleep, get up, and go back to that same job again? Are you concentrating on everything that's right in your life or everything that's wrong? What actions/thoughts/vibrations are you putting out into the Universe right now? Are they positive or negative? If they are negative, think about a little black box on the chart of your life and ask yourself, is this the way I want to spend this moment? Is this what I feel my life is worth?
Here's the link to make your own Memento Mori:
http://www.thenategreenexperience.com/downloads/memento-mori.pdf
As the weeks pass I look at the little blocks that I've coloured in black and think to myself, "Was this week a good representation of how I want to live my life? Did I do things that made me happy? Was I kind? Did I love? Did the people I care about know I cared? Was that time spent in front of the TV doing nothing worth that box of my life? Were the feelings of fear and self doubt worth wasting one single iota of that precious time on? Was worrying about whether I would be judged for my decisions or actions concerning my own life worth one second of my thoughts?" Sometimes the answers to these questions are not what I had hoped. Some weeks I have spent time in a heap of self pity, some weeks I have spent time feeling bitter and lonely instead of grateful for all of the wonder in my life. Each week I learn something about myself and I become more aware of the direction I'd like to steer myself in to make my best life possible. Looking at that chart makes the sometimes all-consuming fixations seem really trivial, and completely puts things back in perspective. I look at those little blocks and think of all the time I spent fretting about my hair, my weight, my clothes. I look to where I was 14 years old and I felt like my world was ending, and I truly wanted it to end, and now I can't remember why I felt so hopeless. I can guarantee it was about things that weren't going my way, people that didn't act/react the way I wanted them to, and things I didn't have in my life. Some of those things I could control and some I couldn't. Back then it was everything but 26 years later I see that it wasn't all I made it out to be. It’s so obvious now that my mind was stuck on what I wanted and not on the wonderful things I already had.
Not long after being introduced to the memento mori, I watched the movie Finding Joe, about The Hero's Journey as explained by Joseph Campbell. One line in the movie really caught my attention: "One day we will all be dust and the janitor will be buried beside the CEO." That was the most truth I had ever heard about death in my life. It wasn't sugar coated. We are all going to die, not one of us will be spared, and isn't death a great equalizer among us? In death we're all the same, but what are you doing in your life that sets you apart? Are you following your bliss, or do you come home from a job you hate and watch TV until it's time to go to sleep, get up, and go back to that same job again? Are you concentrating on everything that's right in your life or everything that's wrong? What actions/thoughts/vibrations are you putting out into the Universe right now? Are they positive or negative? If they are negative, think about a little black box on the chart of your life and ask yourself, is this the way I want to spend this moment? Is this what I feel my life is worth?
Here's the link to make your own Memento Mori:
http://www.thenategreenexperience.com/downloads/memento-mori.pdf
If you choose to make one, take a good hard look at your life as you do it. Are you creating the life you really want? Is there something you've always wanted to do that you’ve been putting off because you’re afraid? Don't waste another minute on the trivial shit, wishing to do things instead of taking action. The old adage is true, there's no time like the present. The present is all you really have; we're not guaranteed the rest of those little boxes, so go out now my friends, and do everything you've dreamed. This isn’t idealism; this is your life in motion.
No comments:
Post a Comment