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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Who Do You Want to Be When You Die?




Have you ever asked yourself this question? I think this is the most important question a human being can ask himself. If you never did, it's high time you do. And you should ask yourself several times a day: "Is what I am doing right now congruent with who I want to be when I die?" If the answer is yes, then fine. If the answer is no then you shouldn't be doing it.


Everytime you ask this question you are actually checking that you are on the right path to reach your ultimate goal. You might already be the person you want to be when you die, and this is great. It's great because you never know when you will die. So whatever happens you'll always be remembered as that person that you wanted to be remembered as since you already are.


Most people don't have a clear answer to the question. And this is fine. When you think about it, a lot of people died without even asking themselves the question once. So you already are further than a lot of people in the process of reaching that goal. Getting a clear answer, though, is very important. It is like setting your ultimate life goal. Obviously if you don't know where you're shooting at, the odds of shooting on target are against you. Hence the importance of knowing in which direction to take your life.


The key to getting a clear answer is .
Have you ever asked yourself this question? I think this is the most important question a human being can ask himself. If you never did, it's high time you do. And you should ask yourself several times a day: "Is what I am doing right now congruent with who I want to be when I die?" If the answer is yes, then fine. If the answer is no then you shouldn't be doing it.Everytime you ask this question you are actually checking that you are on the right path to reach your ultimate goal. You might already be the person you want to be when you die, and this is great. It's great because you never know when you will die. So whatever happens you'll always be remembered as that person that you wanted to be remembered as since you already are.


Most people don't have a clear answer to the question. And this is fine. When you think about it, a lot of people died without even asking themselves the question once. So you already are further than a lot of people in the process of reaching that goal. Getting a clear answer, though, is very important. It is like setting your ultimate life goal. Obviously if you don't know where you're shooting at, the odds of shooting on target are against you. Hence the importance of knowing in which direction to take your life.


The key to getting a clear answer is to identify your values. Once you know your values and which ones are most important, instead of asking "is what I am doing right now congruent with who I want to be when I die?" you will ask yourself "is what I am doing right now [insert value here]?"


My personal values, in order of most important to least important, are :


Health
Honesty
Intelligence
Love
Happiness
Personal Growth
Success
Be the best
Passion
Contribution


Knowing this and deciding to stick to it is extremely empowering. Whenever I find myself unable to decide what to do, or if I'm in a situation which doesn't feel right, I just start asking myself a series of questions: "is what I am doing right now healthy?", "is what I am doing right now honest?", etc … If it doesn't balance out, then it is not me, nor is it who I want to be when I die. So I either don't do what I was about to do, or I try to get out of the situation. My values define me, they define who I want to be and who I will be.


We've already talked about beliefs. We've seen that they can help us get tangible results. Now asking the question of who we want to be when we die brings up the topic of values. Values act deeper than beliefs. Changing your values, knowing your values and sticking to them will help you feel good about yourself, it will help in any decision-making process and in goal setting. So the next question is "how do I identify and define my values?" This will be the topic of another article. Stay tuned.






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