The Rhythm of Life – Question 20 – What Do You Want to Do?

“Welcome back to 21 questions that will change your life.

Question #20 is about how short life is and the realty of death. We live sometimes ignoring the reality of death. We live and pretend we are going to live forever. We live thinking we can think about dying later, but death creeps up on us all. Life is short and precious.

Question #20 is… If you knew you only had one year to live, what would you spend the next year doing? Dream a little. Plan a little. Pray a little. Talk to those you love a little. There is something this question should move you to prioritize over the next year.

Today’s question is… If you knew you only had one year to live, what would you spend the next year doing?”


60 Second Wisdom – What to Do if Your Life Isn’t Working

“Every day we make dozens of decisions and choices. Many of them we make unconsciously. They all have consequences. They have intended consequences and unintended consequences, and we have to live with both.

These smaller choices and decisions prepare us or prevent us from making life’s biggest choices in a way that is life-giving for everyone involved.

For decades researchers have been exploring what people consider to be the biggest decisions of life. From generation to generation there can be some jockeying for top position, but what is on the list is not surprisingly consistent from one generation to another.

Today, these are considered life’s six biggest decisions:

1. Having children
2. Getting married
3. Buying a home
4. Where to go to college and what to study
5. Moving cities
6. Changing career later in life

Others that make the longer list include:

When to retire; whether or not to end a relationship; choosing to spend or save; quitting a job; getting a pet; setting boundaries with toxic family members and friends; standing up for yourself; putting an elderly relative in a care home; and, whether or not to accept a promotion.

These are all important decisions. They can each be difficult in their owns ways. And yet together they paint a picture that is worth reflecting upon. There seems to be something missing. The bigger things. The deeper things. These may be the “what” but where is the “why.”

In many ways, these things, some of them profoundly important, seem to have been reduced to a list of personal preferences. And as a result, decision making seems to have been reduced to an exercise of personal preference selection.

The larger perspective seems to be missing. Who are we? What are we here on earth for? What matters most? What matters least? How is the best way to spend our short lives?

And most of all, who or what are we going to place at the center of our lives? For this alone will determine almost everything else. This alone will drive our decisions, large and small.

So, the best place to start is by asking the question: Who or what is at the center of your life? Career, money, things, self, God, children, spouse, friends, expectations?

If your life isn’t working, change what is at the center of it.”


The Best is Yet to Come

“Is your life unfolding the way you thought it would? I was paging through my high school yearbook recently. There were 161 young men in my graduating class, and fewer than a handful are doing what they thought, hoped, or dreamed they would be doing. Most of them are glad. When they were seventeen or eighteen, they didn’t know themselves well enough to decide what they were going to do for the rest of their lives.

Life doesn’t turn out the way we expect. In some ways it exceeds our expectations, and in other ways it disappoints them. There may be hopes and dreams that were part of the life we expected that we need to grieve because they didn’t materialize. But there are also hopes and dreams we had when we were younger that we are glad did not come to be. We see now that we were ill-suited for them, and they were ill-suited for us. At the same time, there are things about the unexpected life that surprise and delight.

Life doesn’t unfold as we plan. We all live unexpected lives in one way or another. But sooner or later, we have to decide how we are going to make the most of the unexpected life. It is then that we come face-to-face with two enduring truths: We cannot live without the hope that things will change for the better, and we are not victims of our circumstances.

You are not what has happened to you. You are not what you have accomplished. You are not even who you are today or who you have become so far. You are who and what you are still capable of becoming. You are your realized and unrealized potential. God sees you and all your potential, and he aches to see you embrace your best, truest, highest self. He yearns to help you and to accompany you in that quest.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re feeling, however life has surprised and disappointed you, I want to remind you of one thing: The best is yet to come! There are times in life when this is easier or harder to believe, but the best is truly yet to come. Open yourself up to it, so you can see it and embrace it when it emerges!”