It's Your Funeral

Imagine…

You are dead. Your life is over, there is no more work to be done, and now everything about you is past-tense. There is nothing left to the concept of “You” but what exists in others’ memories. If you have ever left a negative impression on someone, you have no chance to redeem yourself. You have hit “send” on the manuscript of your life, and it has been submitted to the editor for critique.

How would you like to be described at your funeral?

Some funerals have pastors officiating, where they read off a one-size-fits-all description of a generic decent person’s life. Some are sparsely attended, and people struggle for profound things to say about a person who really wasn’t all that profound.

Others (these are the really memorable, awe-inspiring ones) have people crowded, standing-room only in the back, waiting in a line to get up and say what a truly amazing person this was. Stories and tears flow freely as loved ones paint a picture of an individual who will live forever as a saint or a hero.

There are those people who live their whole lives to serve others, and the ones who knew them best will swear up and down that there wasn’t a selfish bone in their body. There are those who touch many, many lives, inspiring them to be the best they can be, demonstrating a life’s full potential. There are those who are the matriarchs or patriarchs of ginormous families, helping bind them together in strength and love, leaving an ongoing legacy that will never die.

It’s a question I’m asking myself these days: how do I want to be remembered?

Remember that memories erode, and eventually all that will be left of you is an abridged version, with just the most important/memorable stuff. So it’s something to ponder as the days flow past us, unceasingly… what are we doing with our time here? What will our Greatest Hits CD sound like? Any given morning you wake up, you could start composing a new song for it. You could do something huge and amazing, or start down some new path that will change things forever. All that it takes is a decision to make it happen.

I think that many (most?) of us tend to live without real purpose or direction, making decisions that are arbitrary or short-sighted. To live deliberately means to live with a big-picture sort of mindset, acting based on long-term reasoning, keeping always in mind what sort of life we want to live.

It’s so easy to just exist. It’s another thing entirely to live a life you’ll want to be remembered by.

Capturing the Now

I've been thinking recently about a certain irony: we spend so much of our time capturing memories that, in some cases, we may fail to create those memories. Take vacations or parties for example. Many of us spend the entire time with a camera in hand, catching each moment as it comes. Sometimes we manufacture moments for the camera, contrived situations that do not reflect reality, but make for pleasant memories. But most importantly, rather than relishing the moment itself, and throwing ourselves with wild abandon into happiness, we constantly concern ourselves with making sure that it can be recorded properly. Why do we do this?

Personally, I fall into that category of those who are more or less obsessed with documenting everything. I find that, without keeping records of what happened, I can forget entire days, weeks, periods of my life. I can forget entire vacations, entire relationships, entire epiphanies, entire moments of pure bliss. And once they are forgotten, they are lost forever to the erosion of time. But I can't help but wonder, is this focus on record-keeping counter-productive? It's really very similar to the old debate of whether to live for the present or the future. Do we invest our time and money so as to enjoy their fruits later? Or do we not put off joy, choosing instead to pour ourselves into the here and now? What if all the effort we put into preserving for the future was put instead into living each moment to its fullest potential? Would we be happier? Would we have more moments to look back on fondly, adding color and light to the story of our past?

We have such an intense desire to preserve the present so we can enjoy it in the future. But what does it mean if we're trying so hard to capture it, that we end up letting it pass us by?