What Would You Do If You Found Out You Had One Year To Live?

Written on August 30, 2007 by Tezza

Thursday’s weekly guide to Personal Growth from 4EvaYoung.com

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs

Stop and consider for a moment what would happen if you had only one year to live. After the initial shock of it all you would probably stop to reconsider everything in your life. You would probably ask yourself “Am I happy with my life”, “Am I living the life I want to live”, “Am I around the people I want to be around”, “Am I doing the things I want to do?”

At the risk of sounding morbid, what if you were given the opportunity to do anything you wished in your dieing year, your friends and family wouldn’t begrudge you from making drastic changes to your life since you only had less than 12 months to live.

Those who have experienced a close call, or survived a terminal illness will often tell you that it was also one of their greatest blessings. It gave them the opportunity to truly evaluate what was most important in their life, and because they have had a glimpse of their own mortality they are generally much more confident in following their own path and decisions.

The great tragedy is that many wait until it’s too late, or until we experience a life altering event or illness. When Ted Leonsis survived a dire airplane crash landing in 1983 it inspired his commitment to living life to the fullest. Featured on Oprah in 2001 Ted’s life list has inspired many. He drafted a list of 101 things he wanted to do in a lifetime. As of February 2006, Ted has accomplished 74 of the 101 goals.

So I thought why not consider the opportunity to reach that level of clarity in your own life without hopefully having to be jolted into action through a tragic or negative experience. A great exercise to determine what is important in your life is asking yourself the hard question “What would you do if you found out you had one year to live?

If you’re less than enthusiastic about your responses to the above question then wouldn’t you hate to come to the end of your life and be disappointed about the way you made use of your time on earth.

1. Live Your Life, Stop Living Someone Else’s Life
Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time…- Leo F. Buscaglia

Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Life is too short to be working in a job that you aren’t passionate about, to be squeezing more into your schedule without understanding why or accumulating more material possessions which only brings you temporary joy.

2. Decide on 50 Things You Want to do, have, be or experience in your life.
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take; But by the moments that take our breath away” – Hilary Cooper

Resolve to live out the best life you can possibly live. We only get one life so we need to make the most of it. Take out a block of time to sit down in a quiet space to find out what truly resonates with you in life. This is a chance for you to renew your focus and write down all the things that you want for your life. Don’t judge what comes to your mind, no matter how far fetched it is just liberate yourself from your analytical mind and just write it down without judgement. If you want some ideas here are my life goals I wrote down a while back.

3. Start Living Today
“Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness…if you had little time left to live…you would waste precious little of it. Well, I’m telling you…you do have a terminal illness: It’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason…or you will never be at all.” – Dan Millman

Now that you have a clear idea of what is important to you have a look down that list. Have there been items on that list you have been putting off, people you have neglected or relationships you want to improve. Are their experiences or dreams you want to make a reality but for whatever reason you’ve decided it can’t happen for you.

We are all given a finite time on this earth. Don’t wait to start living your life at 20 or 30 or 40 years of age. Begin it today. If you are reading this post then you can already count yourself lucky. You are already amongst the 1% of the world’s population in terms of opportunity, wealth and privilege. Make it count for something and live out your dreams. Pick one of the items on your list and make a commitment to take one action towards its realization everyday until you can tick it off the list. Maybe you too can be like Ted Leonsis and look back one day at all the goals you have managed to achieve in a lifetime.

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