Saturday, May 19, 2007

What Will Matter

WHAT WILL MATTER


Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no days, no hours or minutes. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame, and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will all expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived.It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Your gender, skin color, and ethnicity will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.What will matter is not your success, but your significance.What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage, and sacrifice that enriched, empowered, or encouraged others to emulate your example.What will matter is not your competence, but your character.What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.What will matter is not your memories, but the memories of those who loved you.What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

Pretty powerful, eh?

3 comments:

Amanda said...

Amen.

josie2shoes said...

This is my all-time favorite Internet piece. I also have it posted by my computer at the office, to remind me of what is important amidst the chaos. It helps to keep me sane... well, as much as can be hoped for anyway. :-)

SOUL said...

well hell. i have NEVER read that before. in fact i thought it was YOU "talking". all i can say is WOW. whoever said it, said it well. yes it IS "powerful".

if only i could get my daughter to understand all that..and live it...then i could rest easy and feel that i have done a good job as a mother. BUT... she is a young, stubborn teenage girl right now....and all she can hear, is what she wants to hear. it is rare that she "gets it".

maybe someday. i hope. because right now... i feel like i am failing her miserably... and no matter how hard i try to say the right thing.... she takes it the wrong way...and we inevitably argue. ugh.

anyhow thanks for putting that up here....i think i am going to print it, and GLUE it to her bathroom mirror!!!! :)
have a good one