Ah, yes. That uncomfortable topic.
The two truths that every human shares are the bookends of birth and death. Along the way, we live, we love, and quite often, we just survive. We have our successes, and infinitely more learning experiences some call mistakes. Some folks embrace a spiritual connection to an existence beyond their time on Earth, while others see it as a reformulation that will repeat until they get it right.
Any and all of these honor a common thread: Life is precious, and we try to make the most of it.
The technologies that, in theory, "make our lives better", also detract by being glittering shiny objects, teasing us with infinite portals to the next great thing. Or the latest gossip, questions that we've never thought of pondering, and what someone's immortally cute pet just did.
My point is that there are many things for us to escape with, and in doing so, we give up precious moments with our best lifetime partner, ourselves. It pushes us away from plans we could make if we just engaged and rehashed more often. Laughed and groaned over "remember when", and in doing so, rekindle thoughts of "I always wanted to".
One way I do that is by thinking about my eulogy, and the facts I would like my it to say about me. It would speak to the changes I chose that made my life special, with a nod to one or two that I can't believe I survived. The infection points where the future could have gone terribly wrong if someone hadn't been there, and the intentions I'd left behind.
It's the last one that helps me the most in considering my future. I give thought to:
Why was it important then?
Is it no longer useful to me?
Are there elements that I would reshape for today's me?
Are there people that had influenced those thoughts, and should I reach out to see how there lives have progressed?
We talk about lessons learned, and how they're manifested in the paths we've chosen. Leave a sliver of time for them to reappear, and how we've grown since they appeared. One thing for certain is that they are your friend, even if they were viewed as a foe. The universe demands balance. Empirical good must have a counterpart to be validated against, other wise how good was it?
So give yourself the grace of doing your best, trying your best, and living among others doing the same.
Happy New Year, everyone. Let's define our future in beautifully incremental and eventually rewarding ways.