Today is my only day off this week, so I’m running errands. I’m listening to the second part of the podcast that I referenced in the previous “Happiest” post… So one of the things that she was also posing the question of is ‘how do you want to be remembered when you pass away? What do you want your obituary to say?’ Obviously she was not getting at just the essential words that would be in the context of a newspaper. But rather what do you want your life to have meant when you are gone? What do you want your tombstone say?
What is the meaning of life?
It’s not an easy question to answer. I won’t begin to answer it in a short blog post. At it’s core, it’s the quintessential meaning of life. That makes it a question I will spend my whole life answering. But I thought it was a really meaningful thing to sit and ponder. It should kind of be a check and balance that we look to on a weekly or monthly basis to gauge if the decisions we are making are guiding us into the direction we want our life to head in.
How do you want to be remembered?
I clearly want to be remembered as a caring and thorough nurse. But I definitely don’t want to be remembered as someone who gave my heart and soul to the job but didn’t leave enough of me for my kids or didn’t find ways to be the hands and feet of Jesus outside of my 9-5. I want to be remembered as someone who learned from her mistakes. Who made wise decisions. I don’t want to be remembered as a Scrooge or a Grinch who didn’t share my wisdom or my resources.
You see, there’s a fine balance between who I am, how I am perceived, and what I do with what I am. Making sure to find that distinction and clearly demarcating those differences is essentially the difference between just living and living well. I want to have had a life well lived with amazing memories. Memories that will live on after I’m gone and the legacy that sets the foundational success for generations to come. I don’t need my family tree to be filled with branches as much as needing those branches to flourish and be well nurtured be.
Getting back to the podcast. The guest also mentioned that maybe instead of seeing happiness or what makes you happiest as our key takeaway, perhaps we should be looking at what makes us the most fulfilled.
What is fulfillment? What brings you fulfillment?
To get a greater understanding of what “fulfillment” really is, I asked Siri and she told me it is“the achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted. Satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one’s abilities or character.” It’s not just getting through the day. It’s getting through the day with purpose, with goals that are being INTENTIONALLY sought out. Going through life with intention, not Willie Nelly, not half-assed. It’s going to bed at night with the peace that you worked your butt off for more than just a paycheck knowing that hopefully a year from now you’ll be two steps forward and not five steps back. It’s watching a sunset at the end of the day, and you know that you did what you could to make yourself and the world a better place.
What do you feel would bring you fulfillment? Is it money? Not having to work? Health? Looking great in a swimsuit? Being able to have peace that your debt is gone or bills are paid for the month? Having kids who graduated high school and are now responsible adults? Or just getting to do what you want to do?
Narrowing it down
To give you a little perspective on the podcast guest, this upper-30 year old woman has already achieved FI (“financial independence” to the non-FIRE movement peeps) which means, essentially, that she has sufficient personal wealth to live without having to actively work to provide for her day-to-day expenses. She is going to bed every night knowing that her bills are paid. And just because the bills are paid and the future is secure in that department doesn’t mean that she’s not continually striving for fulfillment in her life and the lives of her children.
With this perspective in mind, it just flipped a switch in my mind that just because one day I’ll meet my financial or professional or relational (etc etc) goals doesn’t mean I stop trying to seek fulfillment. It seems to me that it’s a daily quest and should be a daily quest whether I’m 25 or 75. Maybe instead of waking up and looking at the day as a to do list maybe it needs to be visualized as a “what do I want to get out of today”? Or “what do I want to give to today” perspective? Maybe this would make getting through the to do list a little less painful? The focus is shifted slightly off it’s normal axis in the direction I am steering it.
What do you want your obituary to say?
When your time comes to rejoin the dust from which you came, what do you want to leave behind? What do you want your obituary to say? I want mine to say that I was fulfilled, that I gave it my all and left it all on the field. That I loved and laughed hard. And that I gave more than I took leaving the world a bit brighter 💛