Don't Die Until You're Done

First, thanks for all the love on the last post about Reinventing the World. Let’s continue the discussion, in particular the part about you perhaps feeling like you’re not ready to step up and face the daunting challenges in front of us right now.  In the rational, logical sense, you’re correct.  Most likely, you’re not ready right now.  Because no one is.  But therein lies the most intoxicating, alluring, and sensational element of living – the challenge, growth, and evolution we can choose to experience. 

My “Friday Filosophy” subscribers will probably connect this discussion to the subject we explored in the last issue: the individual evolution each of us has the opportunity to create for ourselves.  And the tragic reality that most people start out with that goal when they reach adulthood, but within a few years, they’ve given up the ghost on this.  They trade in mind expansion for Netflix, video games, porn, and/or unceasing scrolling on social media platforms.

In essence, they die somewhere around the age of 25, but usually don’t get buried until they reach their 70s or 80s.

While those additional years are beneficial for the GDP and Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth, what an appalling waste of the human experience it is for the rest of us.  It’s the equivalent of Hemingway never writing a book, the Egyptians never constructing the Pyramids of Giza, Dylan never composing a song, the Sufi mystics never writing poetry, Jonas Salk never studying medicine, or Rosa Parks never refusing to stand in the back of the bus.

Every person that dies before it’s time to bury them is a crime against humanity.  I’m begging you to make sure you’re not one of them.

That doesn’t mean you need to live in the history books, have a school named after you, or develop the cure for cancer… 

• Maybe you’ll be the teacher that inspires the scientist who does cure cancer.
• Maybe you’ll befriend someone who was going to commit suicide and doesn’t.
• Maybe you’ll plant a tree that will be here 100 years from now.
• Maybe your kids will make the world a better place.
• Maybe you will make the world a better place simply with a kind word, a helping hand, or your smile.
• Maybe the challenges you face will inspire others to overcome them.
• Maybe you’ll adopt a child or rescue a stray.
• Maybe that kid you coach in the youth league grows up to be the next LeBron.
• Maybe you’ll make your grandma proud.
• Maybe you’ll make yourself proud.
• Maybe you’ll share this podcast and it will inspire 17 people to choose prosperity.
• Maybe that post you make on Facebook inspires someone to create a dance company. Or…
• Maybe you actually will live in the history books, have a school named after you, or develop the cure for cancer.

Truth is, any two or three of the above will improve the world and make up a part of the legacy you leave.  And we’ll never know...you’ll never know...unless you decide to live, really live, until the clock runs out.  Will you do that for the rest of us?

Peace,

- RG