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| Nope, no epitaph for me! |
What started out as a "Gratitude Exercise" from Olivia Fox Cabane's excellent book The Charisma Myth turned out to be an exercise in discovering the strategy blueprint for my life!
Cabane maintains that gratitude can transform your entire body language into positive energy, and therefore enhance charisma. (If nothing else, read her chapter "Creating Charismatic Mental States." It will make you a warmer, more compassionate person.) She provides exercises to find gratitude, and one of them is to:
Imagine your own funeral
No kidding. The idea is to be flooded with gratitude when you realize you're still alive. I thought, why not give it a try, just for kicks. The result? Not gratitude for being alive - I'm pretty happy about that every day, to be honest - but I got a sure-fire strategy on how I'm going to live my life.
I'll share what I wrote, by hand, at a Starbucks on Battery Street on a miraculously sunny San Francisco summer day.
My Funeral
My funeral is held outdoors, on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It's midday, sunny, a bit breezy. No stuffy interiors or heavy-scented flowers (ugh). It is a Saturday. Nature is all around. Guests had to walk a bit from their cars, but they were prepared beforehand on what to expect. People (a fairly contained crowd of those who knew and loved me most) know why they're there - I love the sea, the wind. No chairs. This is not a long, stuffy eulogy-type thing.
A few people talk. Those closest to me. ~10-15 minutes each. People take leaves or flower petals and scatter them over the ocean afterwards. No coffin, no nothing. Cremation, yo!
During the speeches, people talk about how I was a warm, caring person who made others' lives better or richer in some way. That I was full of life and curiosity, always excited about something. That I delighted them with my dancing, music, and interesting topics of conversation. They'd have no regrets for me, because I'll have tried all the things I wanted!
I won't have a tombstone, because no coffin, remember? It might be nice to have a plaque somewhere. Something that says:
"Life is awesome! Live the life you want, now!"
... in my memory. My name doesn't have to be on it. In fact, it should be anonymous, so that henceforth people can see it and think, "Yeah! What am I doing with my life? Carpe diem!" and do something about it (or at least think about it).
I don't feel teary-eyed or even intense, thinking about my own funeral. I trust myself enough to know that if there's something I really want to try in my life, I'm going to go do it. So by the time I move on, I'll be okay with it.
Sure, it's a bit surreal (and a wee bit tingly) thinking about being gone, but after all, we've got to go sometime. If our time was infinite, we might not ever feel enough urgency to get out there and DO stuff that's meaningful to us.
Neither is life a ticking timepiece. All in good time - only I'll know when it's time to take another leap, big or small. There's never a perfect time. Just do it when it's appropriate, or at least set the wheels in motion for it to happen.
I've lived a fulfilling life by the time my goodbye happens, so it'll be sentimental but joyous. I want people to miss me and to remember me, but to be happy. After the brief speeches and scattering of leaves/petals, there will be food. And a dance party. LIFE CONTINUES!
***
It all came tumbling out very smoothly, very surely. I was delighted as I surprised myself by what turned out to be an exercise in self-affirmation.
Now I'll have even more impetus to make calculated risks to do the things I want in my life. Because at the end of life, no one ever talks about things they regret they did; they talk about the what-ifs in their life. I don't want that!
As I finished writing, I was left with a sense of shimmering energy and joy. I can feel it as I write this, now.
Give it a shot - write about your own funeral! You never know what you'll learn about yourself. You just might discover what really matters to you.
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