Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear. So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought but what you built, not what you got but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage, or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.
What will matter is not your memories but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.
A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked. "Who would like this $20 bill?"
Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you - but first, let me do this."
He proceeded to crumple the 20 dollar note up. He then asked. "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air.
"Well," he replied, "what if I do this?" He dropped it on the
ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. "Now, who still wants it?"
Still the hands went into the air.
"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No
matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.
Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless, but no matter what happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.
Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still
priceless to those who love you. The worth of our lives comes, not in what we do or who we know, but by ...WHO WE ARE.
You are special - don't ever forget it."
Once upon a time a man had heard, that in a foreign place, far away, there was a holy flame burning. So he got up and left his home to find the holy flame and bring some of its light back home to his house. He thought: 'When I have this light, then I will have happiness and life and all the people I love will have it too.'
He travelled far, far away and finally found the holy flame, with which he lit his light. On his way back he had only one worry: 'That his light could go out.'
On his way home he met someone who was freezing and didn't have any fire and who begged him to give him some of his fire. The man with the light hesitated for a moment. Wasn't his light too precious, too holy to be given away for something ordinary like that? Despite these doubts, he decided to give some of his light to the one who was freezing in the darkness.
The man continued his journey home and when he had almost reached his house a terrible thunderstorm started. He tried to protect his light from the rain and the storm, but at the end his light went out.
To return the long way back to the place where the holy flame was burning was impossible, he wouldn't have had enough strength to go back this far - but he was strong enough to return to the human being whom he had helped on his way home.
and with his light he could light his own again.
A son and his father were walking in the mountains.
there once was a boy who had a bad temper. his father gave him a bag full of nails and told him that every time he losses his temper, he must hammer a nail into the wooden fence in front of their house.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger. the number of nails hammered into the fence daily gradually dwindled down. he discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. he told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy should pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The day passed and that boy finally was able to tell that all nails were gone.
his father took him by the hand and led him to the fence.
the father said
