How Do You Want To Be Remembered?

You know, none of us are immortal. There will come a day where we all have to make that final walk into the unknown. When it finally comes, none of us know what we’ll be walking into. All we know is what is happening here and now and it is with that in mind that we should live our lives. Some people might say “no shit Sherlock” but when is the last time you actually thought about it?

          I am as guilty as anyone, if not more so, of having the mentality of “oh, I’ll do it tomorrow” and that’s the wrong mentality to have. Really, we should be living our lives with more of the mentality of “what if there is no tomorrow?”. I’ll be honest for a moment, my mentality has been all over the place recently for reasons I won’t go into here, even as I’m writing this my thinking, my opinions, my whole mentality is in a stake flux and change. Consider it as a bit of a “mini” existential crises right. I know that probably sounds like I’m exaggerating and to be honest I don’t know, we’ll just have to wait and see.

          You know what? I don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t start writing this with any sort of plan in mind, I just wanted to get my thoughts into writing in order to help make sense of them. I know, let’s be a “good” university student and answer the question being asked and not what we think we are being asked.

          Ask yourself something, and be honest, if you were to die tomorrow, how do you think people will remember you? Is that how you want to be remembered? If not, then don’t have that mentality of “oh, I’ll change it tomorrow”, bloody do something about it now! That thing you wanted to do, do it! That thing you wanted to say, say it! If people have a problem with what you did or said, wait a couple years down the line, no one’s going to remember or give a shit. And if they do, at least it will be a good story to tell! I know that might sound really depressing or tough, but none of us know how long we’ve got left on this Earth so why waste it worrying what people might say or think? So yeah, save for that mortgage or that wedding ring or whatever, but don’t sacrifice the living in the now for the sake of what only might be. Simply think “how do I want to be remembered?” and live by that?

          I know all this might be easy to say, but hard to actually do, maybe I’m just writing this as I know deep down that this is a lesson I need to start learning to live by. I know this probably all sounds like a load of gibberish to most people, but like I said earlier, for reasons I won’t go into here, maybe this is just something I needed to put into writing to help organise my thoughts.

          Anyway, I’ll shut up now and just down this half-drunk glass of scotch I’ve been staring at for the last half an hour. I’ll just finish up by saying, happy new year and make it a year where you can look back and say “ you know what, I did something that year, that was a year that mattered”.

Yours always,

Jason