I’m dying, at this very moment I’m gasping for my last few breaths on this earth. I find myself lying here, an elderly 80 year old man, in pain, on my final deathbed, knowing that it soon will all be over, my last breath….my pain….my life. I figure, I have only about 8 minutes left to say what I need to say, before I pass on, so please, just hear me out. As I lie here dying, ready to share with you my final Eulogy, breathing my last 8 minutes of life, you’re probably sitting there deciding whether or not you even have any time right now to listen to my Eulogy, my life’s final words. You know, it’s funny how these 8 precious minutes, I will cherish and hold dearly, hanging on every word spoken; I can only hope you are affected in the same way. Don’t be sad for me, as I knew this day would soon come for me to say goodbye, please do me a favor if you could, and pass this Eulogy onto my loving family for this coming Friday, to be told at my funeral, and tell everyone that I love them and that I will miss them very much….
Part I-
I realize now after all of these years in my life that 99% of the time I was always told what was right and what was wrong. I hadn’t listened to others, I thought I always knew a better way, or that my choices, decisions, and actions wouldn’t affect me, I now see the errors in my ways, please forgive me. I followed my friends in how they did things, and now most of them have recently passed on, much like me, broke, with grave illness, mental loss, and a lack for a deeper meaning for life. I guess this shouldn’t surprise me, I was always told that in my lifetime I would be exposed to over 80,000,000 marketing messages, all of which would influence me. It was always up to me whether I let them influence me in a positive way or negative way. I was blessed with the opportunity to have up to 2,920,000,000 thoughts in my lifetime, 100,000 thoughts per day. I now know it was always my choice all along on which thoughts entered my mind, and which didn’t. I now regret not letting a few more positive messages in, while I should have kept more negative and anger messages out. People always told me I had 86,400 seconds every day in which to spend my time, those seconds I could never get back once the day was over. I took that advice lightly and was slow to take action and get important things done. They told me I had 1440 minutes per day, and to reflect now on all of the happy things that I could have done in just 1 of those minutes, if I only knew then what I know now. In my best years, I accomplished great things in under 1 hour, you know, I was given 24 of those opportunities every single day, and speaking of days, I had 365 days per year just like everyone else, so life was always fair to me in that way. Sure, I wasted a few days, made a few mistakes, looking back I could have made some different decisions, but to think I was given over 30,000 days on earth to get it right, I mean, talk about getting more than one opportunity in life.
I now realize that I had my very last meal a little earlier today. Who knows, maybe I would have enjoyed a few more meals had I only listened to others about what I should put into my body every day. Each day, it was me that made the choice to put that food in my mouth. I realize now that those 5 small meals I had every day, added up over my entire lifetime. I figure that would make around 146,000 meals in all. Knowing what I now know, having done something so wrong 146,000 times in a row compounded can really affect a person in a negative way, what was I thinking.
Sorry……I’m getting….a little choked up here…..less than 7 minutes remaining…..
Part II-
I now realize that I shouldn’t have modeled myself after all of the other people, as they ended up just like me, I should have done more, challenged myself more, expected more of myself. I now realize that every day of my life, what was slowly slipping away from me all along was, my age, mental state, savings, relationships, and meaning for life. I wish I had realized this earlier; I had to try to improve these things every hour of every day, that’s the only way they wouldn’t have slipped so far away from me. I, like everyone else, wanted everything, the fame, the money, basically to have it all, but can you blame me. Reflecting back on my life now, on all of the time I spent trying to achieve this, you know, it reminds me of a story I once heard from Mark Albion when I was a little boy:
An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked. Inside the boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.
“Only a little while”, the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked.
“I have enough to support my family and give a few to my friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.
“but…what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican looked up and smiled, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor.”
The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you will have a fleet of fishing boats.”
He continued, “instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the customers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, or course, and move to Mexico City then Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, senor, how long will this take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years. 25 years tops. ”But what then, senor?”
The American laughed and said, “that’s the best part, when the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions, senor? Then what?”
“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with you wife and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos…”
thank you for listening to me, I appreciate it, reading the last words of my Eulogy, I figure that I only have about 5 minutes left, so I’ll try to be quick, my friend. I now know like everyone else that I didn’t have a choice when I had to sleep 1/3 of my life, that time was always lost. Had I structured things differently though, I realize I didn’t have to spend the other 1/3 to 2/3’s of my life just working up until the end. I would have tried to maximize my time in a much different way, if only I had another chance. It’s clear to me now that in order for me to feel whole in my dying moments, what I would have wanted more than anything is a balanced life. It’s so obvious to me now, that those 5 areas of a balanced life are: Mind, Health, Financial, Relationships, and Spiritual. I found myself, just like many other people, at different stages in my life, uncertain about what was real or true anymore. I should have realized that regarding these 5 balances of life, deep down, I was always 100% certain about them. I guess I just chose not to take action, forgive me, as that’s my only excuse. How I spent my time was always at the core of my opportunity to fulfill these 5 balances in life. It’s so strange how time is so similar to money; think about it, time can be saved, wasted, invested, leveraged, spent, stolen, time can work for you or against you, just like money. We all have the same amount of time every day; we don’t all have the same amount of money. It’s now that I finally realize that the money that I wanted to make was only just a byproduct of how I spent my time. I should have spent my time doing only what I had a passion for in life, enjoying the ride and journey a long the way; the money would have just naturally followed. Sure I’ve learned my lessons, so it’s in my last few moments with you, that I can try to say with confidence, that money will not buy you an instant education; money will not buy you a healthy mindset; money will not buy you great health; money will not give you a career that you are passionate about; money will not buy you true friends, and money will not buy you a deeper spiritual meaning in life. I know this now, my friend, for I learned this the hard way. Had I just chosen to live a life with my passion, and trust that the money would follow, I see this so clearly now. I believe people now, when they tell me that, in life, every second counts; I have about 180 of those seconds remaining to share with you my final thoughts.
Part III
I am now better at time awareness. I realize now that all of the messages that influenced me daily, from the thoughts I had, the choices I was presented, the decisions I made, and the actions I did or didn’t take, my good habits and bad habits all multiplied together compounded over time, in my entire lifetime, made me the total sum of who I am today, whether I am satisfied with the outcome or not. My friend, you are younger than me, have more time than me, please realize that your past does not equal your future, it only equals your present situation. Only you can choose, at anytime to move forward from the exact spot that you are at in your life right at this moment; please, I beg of you, don’t make the same mistakes that I did.
What my life’s experience taught me about people, there are two kinds; unfortunately for me, I was the 2nd type. There are those that create their future and make things happen, and then there are people like me, that wait for life to happen to them. I use to wait to hear the daily news on TV; I’d eagerly await the newspaper headlines, job loss reports, and economic news. I even got to the point where I couldn’t even move forward unless I got a certain phone call, or waited on someone else to take action. It causes me great pain to think that I actually thought that my life’s direction was determined by my fortune cookies, my daily horoscopes, a winning lottery ticket, scratch offs, pull tabs, when all along I was addicted to the instant gratification. It reminds me of a quote someone once told me, "The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create It!" I guess I always believed someone out there was going to make sure that my life ended perfect; looking back now it was always up to me, and only me, to design my own life. The mistake I made was I didn’t take action often enough, I simply just procrastinated, pushed my problems forward; I was just delaying the inevitable, it saddens me to this day. A friend of mine, who has since passed on, once told me, many years ago, that when you think of having time on your side, you should think of life and time as an evolution. He later explained that you start with Time awareness, this means being aware of the messages and your thoughts that influence you daily. He said as you improve with time, you learn to make the right choices, decisions, which lead to positive actions, which eventually brings you to time control, and later to efficient time management. Once you have mastered the time management principle, he said, it’s then, that you can move to the next level with time leverage, create systems, replicate those systems, and in the end the goal is to leave a legacy. I should have thought about his advice daily, I should have tried to compete more with the rest of the world. Why…. why, didn’t I realize that if I kept doing bad habits every day that I knew were wrong, why didn’t I know then that I would continue to be stuck and live in a rat race. I’d be just spinning my wheels in the process, while getting nowhere. My friend advised me that there were always time short cuts. He always told me to focus my time on technology, marketing; other people’s education, time, money, and resources.
Maybe…. if I had only started doing those good habits earlier in life, I would have lived a much longer life. Maybe I could have lived a more fulfilling life where I could have had extra time and money to give to charities that I truly believed in. My friend…I envy you, as you still get to enjoy another sunset, see another baby’s smile, have feelings of love, and feelings of joy. You get to feel the simple things in life, a colorful butterfly in flight, the soft musical sounds of a bird, the sweet smell of flowers, the soft touch of a warm sun on your cheek, the mouth watering savory taste of your favorite food. Please, cherish every single beautiful moment throughout life. My friend….I have only about 10 seconds remaining, please… forgive me….. if I start……. to tear up…….just a little bit. Most of all…. I wish……uhhmm….. I wish…..what I would have done more of…. is to laugh a little more. ……to have lived a little more…… to have learned a little more…..to have loved ……and been loved a little more….. for now, my friend, I must let g
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