Although I often flit around light-hearted topics, I usually stick to business on this blog. But recently my life has changed quite dramatically, so I would like to take a moment to share some deeper insights I have learned through my recent experiences.
My mother has terminal cancer. She was recently diagnosed and the cancer has spread very quickly so there is very little time left. I am caring for her while she is in hospice. In these last days of hers, she is teaching me the lesson of how to live and die with grace. Since this has happened, we’ve had some very interesting conversations about life and death. I’ve come to find peace with both her imminent passing and even mortality itself.
Although this road has been arduous, the message I have to share today isn’t negative. When all this sorrow and grief comes to an end, I will be different. I am already different. And what I have learned through these experiences has and will continue to make me a better person…
You can do everything and you will.
Know that a masterpiece does not happen overnight. Instead, there are phases: thought, planning, and then taking action. More often than not, we’re in the thought or planning stages, prepping for the action to come. When the action begins, you take one step at a time, one action after another, until you can handle more and more. Finally, one day you’ll say, “Wow, this masterpiece is complete and I did it! On to the next masterpiece!”
Then the process starts all over again.
When this cycle stops, you are no longer living.
We live to complete all the masterpieces living inside of us.
There is no time to waste; no time like the present! Give yourself permission to LIVE! And give yourself permission to live the life you want to live, not the life that others suggest for you. You owe it to yourself. Only to yourself. Here’s the news: living your life doesn’t make you selfish—it makes you self-aware and self-preserving.
The only alternative is to live with regret. Regret does not benefit and does not preserve yourself or anyone else. Regret is the death of our masterpieces and the death of our selves.
So live your masterpieces. Live them all.