This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.”
- Day 1: Day in the Life, 2034
- Day 2: Tree
- Day 3: 10 and 90
- Day 4: Boundaries
- Day 5: True Self
- Day 6: Inner Child
- Day 7: Traits I Love
- Day 8: Life Paths
- Day 9: Minimum Wage Job
Today’s Assignment: If you only had a year left to live, how would your focus change?
The Deets: What would take priority? Who would you spend more time with today?
Would you want to know the time when your journey Here was going to end? I have thought about that question a lot through the years. Ever since my near-death experience or whatever it was that happened to me that one night back in 2020, there have been times when I have longed to go back. No matter how much I try to be present, to be mindful, I know what There felt like, and I know how much different that feeling is from the feeling I walk around with Here.
Trust me. I understand that all that is weird (and vague, if you haven’t poked around my website to find my There experience). But I also know that what I experienced that night and what I have been given glimpses of several other times is amazing and so much better than Here.
Which makes this question interesting. What would I do if I had only a year left to live? How would my focus change? There are several people I would go way, way, way out of my way to contact, to reconnect, to explain, to apologize, to try to set things right. But beyond that, in the wake of my return from There and the spiritual awakening that came with that, I’ve tried my damnedest to let everyone know exactly what I feel I about them and what I’d want them to know if I should someday leave Here unexpectedly. I’ve written letters to my boys, to my daughter-in-law. I have reached out to those I hurt and tried my best to set things right.
And so often I am left feeling like I’m just sorta playing out the string here. It’s like I’m a football team that’s up big with two minutes to go in the fourth quarter, and all I need to do is just sort of not screw up and mark the time until the game is over. That’s no way to live, and so I try to avoid that, but still, it happens.
My focus would change to writing my story, to putting down my autobiography for future generations. In doing genealogy work on my family and visiting cemeteries because I’m weird, I realize exactly how soon we become nothing more than two dates on a headstone. We started. We ended. All that happens in the middle gets lost so goddamn fast. I know some of the life of my great-grandmother on my birth mother’s side. But past that? There is so little about who those people were when they were alive outside of who they begat.
It’s not that I feel my life has been exceptional in any way worthy of an autobiography. But perhaps maybe someday my kids or their kids or their kids’ kids would be interested. I’m fascinated by this concept of how impermanent the things we’re creating are these days. This website, for example, Were I to die today, what happens to it? Eventually, the domain registration fee wouldn’t get paid. Would the nearly one thousand posts on here just disappear? What about all these photos we’re taking that exist no where else but the Cloud or on a phone? What happens if that Cloud disappeared? Was taken down? If the phone breaks? We’ve all lost digital stuff because of glitches, and it’s now national news if there’s a major social media network outage. Our entire history has started to become nothing more than a collection of ones and zeroes, so is any of it real? If we lost the digital world, how soon would we start to forget that history or bastardize it into something it wasn’t? I think that might be happening already.
So my focus would be to try to leave something more permanent, more real, more tangible, for those I love. And I’d try to set right the things I made wrong. Of course, maybe in some of those cases, the end of me Here is what would set them right. I haven’t exactly had an unobtrusive walk through this life.
And what if I did become just two dates on a headstone? Is that really so bad? Is that perhaps what all of us should be? How important is any individual life, really? We do our best, we try to leave a mark, we hope that mark isn’t painful for too many others, and then we’re done. I don’t pretend to understand any of it. We’re dots on a dot in the universe, a universe so vast I can’t really comprehend it, and if we’re somehow special, I sure as hell don’t understand that.
So maybe I’ll just keep the knowledge to myself that in 365 days, there will be no more me Here. Maybe that would be for the best.
99 Days: One Year Left – Day 10
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: What does “home” mean to you emotionally, physically, and mentally? The Deets: What do you need to feel “at home?” Is it people, a city, familiarity? Explore where you find pockets of the feeling of…
99 Days: Minimum Wage Job – Day 9
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Try this thought experiment about work … The Deets: If you had all the money in the world but had to hold down one minimum wage job for the rest of your life, what kind…
99 Days: Life Paths – Day 8
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Take time to consider the career, relationship, and life paths you didn’t take. The Deets: What if you had gone to a different school, lived in a different city, or taken a different job? What…
99 Days: Traits I Love – Day 7
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Consider the traits you love the most. The Deets: If you could keep just five qualities about yourself, what would they be? Why? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. There ya have it. There ya are.
99 Days: Inner Child – Day 6
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Write a letter to your inner child. The Deets: What would you have wanted someone to tell you at 5, 12, or 18? What difference would it have made in your life if someone had? …
99 Days: True Self – Day 5
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Get clear on the environments and circumstances where your truest self is the most comfortable. The Deets: When was the last time you felt most like yourself? What were you doing? Who were you with?…
99 Days: Boundaries – Day 4
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Identify your hard-set boundaries The Deets: What are five things you’re willing to be disliked for? What is it you see differently from the majority? What do your answers indicate you’re most passionate about? I’m…
99 Days: 10 and 90 – Day 3
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Write a script between your past 10-year-old self and your future 90-year-old self. The Deets: What would they say to each other? What would they talk about? What would your 90-year-old self want your kid…
99 Days: Tree – Day 2
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Day 1: Day in the Life, 2034 Today’s Assignment: Pick a type of tree you feel most embodies your personality. The Deets: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Take time to…
99 Days: Day in the Life, 2034 – Day 1
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Imagine a day in your life 10 years from today. The Deets: This dreaming exercise was originally created by Milton Glaser (described by Debbie Millman here) where you set a timer for 30 minutes and…
Leave a Reply