You’re at a routine doctor’s visit. The doctor brings you into his office where he sit’s you down and begins to read you the results on your X-ray that you recently had done.
Very bluntly, he tells you that you have some rare form of a disease you’ve never heard of before and cannot even pronounce. You quickly go into a state of shock and total disbelief, no longer listening to what the doctor is rambling on about.
As you go in and out of this unconscious like state, you hear him say “you have roughly one year left to live”.
You leave and walk out of the office building and into your car.
Sitting there, you begin to think of how little time you have left. How many things there are to be done that you simply will not be able to do. A future that you were so sure of that you no longer have.
Besides the turmoil going on within your stomach, you suddenly feel tranquil and complete clarity in your mind. Your brain is providing you with a clearly obvious sense of purpose and direction, and for the first time in your life, during this rare heightened state of total awareness, you choose to go with it.
Let’s pretend that the scenario above really happened to you, TODAY.
Ask yourself this question…
“If I had one year left to live, what would I do?”
So you head home and you take out a piece of paper and a pencil and begin to write out your list of what you absolutely must do before it’s too late.
-Quit my job and tell my boss to suck it
-Tell my family/friends that I love them, maybe even go and give them a hug right now if they live close
-Book a flight (or flights) to a few different places that I’ve always wanted to visit, including a few different excursions, retreats, etc that have been on the top of my bucket list
-Max out my credit cards to pay for the above, maybe even open up a few more bank accounts as well
-Spend some time with people who are going through a similar disease as mine
-Buy or lease my favorite car
-Start a business that I’ve always wanted to, maybe a non profit
-etc, etc.
Now let’s say immediately after you wrote down your list of must do’s, this newfound motivation was bountiful enough to push you to actually commit to all of them. Regardless of how uncomfortable some of them made you feel, and most likely why you never did them to this point in your life, you accepted and even encouraged with open arms this sense of discomfort and “stepping into the unknown”.
Fast forward 12 months later.
You’ve transformed, transcended and have turned into a completely new person.
You took a leap of faith and forced yourself to do things that a year and a day prior you never imagined being capable of doing.
You’ve raised your levels of awareness and have learned to recognize and follow the messages and signals that your body and subconscious have shared with you.
You’ve discovered how many limited beliefs you had about yourself and life in general that were holding you back, and how much easier it was then anticipated to dismantle them and grow new and more powerful and positive beliefs.
You’ve realized the true value of time, how it’s the most precious resource that we have on this planet, and spent each and every waking moment of the past 365 days completely living in the present.
You’ve explored new cultures on the totally opposite side of the world.
You’ve expressed your gratitude and unconditional love for your family and friends.
Even though you quit your job and had barely any savings to your name, you’ve become extremely resourceful and have taken every obstacle standing in your way head on and plowed through them.
You’ve gotten a brief taste of living life on your own terms, and the extraordinary feeling of positive momentum, freedom and empowerment that comes along with it, and you’ve become absolutely addicted to it.
You’ve become a success. You’ve done and experienced something that 99.99% of all human beings NEVER get the chance to or take the chance to do. And that’s to live.
Rewinding back to that day when you were sitting in your car minutes after being delivered literally the worst news of your life, instead of letting death consume you, you made a stern decision to maximize the time you had remaining.
While the bad news is what pushed you over the edge, it was still YOU who put together your bucket list and YOU who committed to achieving them.
Now come back to the present, and imagine that at your most recent doctor’s check up he tells you that you no longer have the disease…it just magically went away.
With the experiences and positive mindset that you now possess within, and after already facing death head on and giving him the finger, do you really think all of your prior fears, doubts, limited beliefs and concerns can prevent you from continuing to live a life that you choose to live? A life of freedom?
None of us truly know when our time will come to leave this world. With only this life to live, we must stop playing it safe, seeking comfort and running away from our fears.
When we learn to push ourselves past our comfort zone, we become who we deep down have always wanted to and were meant to be.
There’s no better time than the present to take control of the steering wheel and navigate ourselves towards living the life we’ve always dreamed of living.
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde