There was a time when I put my dreams on hold...maybe I thought the same things many of us think...
It's not the time, maybe when the kids are grown or the mortgage is paid...
I don't think I can do this, I'm not good enough, better to stick with what's safe and my high paying corporate gig...
I don't really deserve to pursue this dream, it's selfish of me...
Maybe after I get this credential or take these next few courses...
Then, after years of numbness & discontent,in a small buddhist temple, I woke up to the fact that life is brilliant & brief. Well, the truth is I was waking up for quite some time but this particular lecture on death - that it is a cerrtainty for all of us and the timing of it uncertain - shocked me into life. It created a sense of urgency for living and no longer taking my one precious life for granted, no longer waiting for someday or for someone.
I'm deeply grateful and today, I know that the contemplation of my mortality, the brief time I have been gifted, creates this lovely urgency for living, noticing and stepping in...before having it all figured out, all the i's dotted and t's crossed...
Once you step into life with a deeper sense of urgency, you tend to get clear, quite quickly about what you really want and what matters most. The fact that one day your life, in this physical form, will end is like a bucket of ice water pouring over you. Once, in one of my "contemplating death" conversations, my mother said, it was morbid to think this way. Well, I think it's real to think this way and what I notice out there is that because we don't think about our mortality, just a bit more often - we often waste our life, forgo stepping into our dreams and take many moments for granted...so how's that working for us so far?
Now living with a sense of urgency might mean some things have to change. You get pretty clear on what that is and very quickly. Living with a sense of urgency allows you to drop the stories, judgements and low vibrations thoughts that rattle around in your mind more easily - there's no time for that, you have too much living to do! Living with a sense of urgency also means that you usually don't get so caught up in the falls you take a long the way, you don't have time to wallow, you just get up faster, dust off those knees and keep going. I love that!
How do you begin living with urgency? Well you can start by asking yourself these questions...you don't need to get freaked out by them, because they revolve around death. Just breathe, ask and see what shows up.
If I had a year to live what would I keeping doing? What would I no longer do? How would I be? How would I love? And what would I step into?
