Ice Bucket Challenge
Have you seen the social media trend where people are challenging each other with the Ice Bucket Challenge again?
It’s all to raise money for ALS research, a very worthy cause. But let’s be honest: getting a bucket of ice water dumped on your head isn’t exactly pleasant, even on a hot, steamy day.
Still, I’m not here to talk about that viral trend. I want to talk about another kind of “ice bucket” moment. Regardless of whether you are still working full time, pushing away the idea of retirement, or you’re dipping your toe in, the hard, cold, ice bucket truth is, we are all going to die.
We don’t know how, when, or under what circumstances, but the fact remains. Let that sink in. Feel it seep into your clothes and settle into your bones. Then ask yourself:
Do I have any unfinished business?
Have I made the mark I want to make?
Is my legacy what I want it to be?
Have I experienced life the way I dreamed I would?
Is there anything I regret not doing or not being?
Yes, these are hard questions. You can click away and assign this message into the trash bin. But facts are facts, and you (and I) only have one life. I strongly urge you to make yours wonderful, meaningful, fun, interesting, rich, and filled with love.
Nearly everyone who considers these questions would have an almost instant answer, their yes’s or no’s. Great questions. Universal questions for those growing old. In some way, maybe even daily, I ask these value-based questions. For me, they are the right ones to ask. They keep me straight. Good hard questions to keep me reflecting on my life as lived. Chance to develop, to understand, to grow, challenge, and get better. The best path to growing old, at least for me.
However, I also recognize that, upon examination, my responses would almost always be past-based, judgment-based, expectations-unmet-based, and memory-based. For me, I need to introduce the future into the mix because I want to live in peace, an armistice with myself and the world around me.
So, I’d like to add a future-based question to balance this out. “If you improved in each of your no’s, to a level that you were satisfied, “Who would you be then, that you’re not being now?”
I assert that future being, that future you, can exist right now, since transformation doesn’t occur in time. I’d rather that transformed person address these questions.