Imagine the grim Reaper standing next to you. He's exactly how you have always imagined, and you know this is the end. He reaches out to touch you, but you ask for just one more day.
What would you do with the last 24 hours of your life? Would you get ahold of that person you haven't talk to in years, to say that you're sorry and that you forgive them? Would you hold the person that you love the most and give them words to remember you by? What if you didn't have that one more day?
After months of relying on strangers and traveling blindly, riding on main highways in car or bike...My mortality is pretty obvious to me at this point. I know that there's the chance that I could be done with this journey any minute.
You call me morbid, but I would call me honest. I can't change the things that I've done in my past, but I can change how my future looks like, and. I have to start with right now. I have to work everyday to make my life one that I think is worth remembering.
When I was down in Texas, I helped with for a very kind of girl that I never met.I got to know her mother and her mother's supportive group of friends through a really trying time. Things will never be the same for her family, she passed away unexpectedly at a very young age close to mine. At the memorial service, they used items from her life to hold onto and look at while they talked about her and played music in her memory.
It's pretty easy for me to replace that girls name with mine. Replace her crying mother with my own. What if that was me? Would I be happy with the life that I've lived, and the items they hold on to? Would they know I lived life to the fullest I could?
Who you are is who you show the world, and what you show the world is based off of the person you have become. Your happiness with yourself is up to you. You can no longer blame you parents, or your upbringing, or the job that you hate. Remove all those things from your life, do you really think you would be that different of a person?
When I was ride sharing around the country, I was still the same person I was back in Seattle, Washington. I went back for the holidays only to realize nothing had changed. I wanted things to be different, but they were the same. Leaving the situation and coming back wasn't what was going to fix it- It was changing me. Took me more than 6 months of immersed travel to come to the realization that its me who needs to change.
Do yourself a favor. Look at your life, and take a deep breath, and really look. Are you where you want to be? How can you get to where you desire? What can you do to make yourself the person that you want to be? Look at your life like a painting. Would you frame the painting on the wall and hanging placard next to it? If your life were a movie, would you proudly put your name under "director", and smile when others came to see it. What if your life was a tattoo, would you proudly show it on your arm for all to see, or hide it and say, "I need a touch-up."
Scrutinize your life, scrutinize yourself. You are who you surround yourself with, you are what you do and how you do it. Love your life and love yourself. Do this for you and find pride in it.