Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Who are you?

Start small; what would you want to be on your headstone?


"Beloved Spouse"?
"A Friend to All"?
“Devoted Wife and Loving Mother”?
“Wonderful father and faithful to the end”?

A little harder now; what would you want in your obituary?

Would it be a standard "So-and-so was survived by so-and-so and dies after short illness,"?  Or would it be more about your life?  What you had done?

Now for the big money question; what would your eulogy say about you?
Would your eulogy talk about your accomplishments?  Would it talk about the people you touched? 

Are you who you want to be?  What's stopping you?

A good life is made up of good days.  And good days only happen if you are doing what you want to be doing.  They only happen if you are doing what you were meant to be doing.

I want "Today is a good day" to be the theme of my headstone, my obituary, and eulogy.  My sister's funeral is my standard for "horrible, terrible, very bad days" it was also a time to remember wonderful things about her.  I can only hope that my life, well lived, will lead to a celebration at my death.  I want people to talk about how I made days better for other people.

Who are you?  How will you be remembered?

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Reward yourself.

Small successes can make for a good day.  It's great if those small success are recognized by our friends or co-workers, or supervisors but that doesn't always happen.  Rewarding yourself is always a winning plan.

I have a large yard.  It can take hours to mow.  I've implemented a system whereby, based on outside temperature and grass length, I get beer tokens that I can cash in for adult beverages.

[Granted, I really enjoy mowing the lawn most days.  It gives me a repetitive task that requires little thought itself where I can either think about things or think about nothing.  It's two to three hours of good day in any case.]

If you don't have your dream job, if you are just marking time until something better comes along, you probably need something to keep you going more than a paycheck in two weeks.  So perhaps a stash of chocolate should be part of your make-today-a-good-day-by-rewarding-myself kit.

You should know where the closest craft store is if that's what makes you happy so you can pop in and get some scrap-booking thing.  Or maybe you need to keep a Starbucks or iTunes or Amazon gift card charged and ready for when you deserve a reward.

If exercise or napping is what you love to do reward yourself with time for either when you deserve it . . because you deserve it.



Go ahead.  Reward yourself.  Make today a good day.