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Live like…

How do you live your days?  What is on your mind?  What projects do you work on?  What do you say ‘yes’ to or ‘no’ to?  Who do you spend your time with?

You have heard the saying ‘live like you will die tomorrow‘.  I love it.  Live like you will die tomorrow means to die empty and give your best to the world.  It means to always take time for the people you love and tell them so.  It means to never  hold a grudge and to forgive easily.  It means to treat yourself, have fun, laugh, and enjoy the beauty around you.   It means to try new things, not be worried about failure or be overprotective of your pride.

Live like you will/could/would die tomorrow

But that isn’t all.  We need to balance that theme with ‘Live like you will live to 100 (or more)“.  Live like you will live to 100 means there is lots of life left.  Making habits now with time, money, and health will all react like compounding interest.  It means not to brush anything ‘under the rug’ and to deal with emotional baggage now so it won’t weigh you down later.  It means it is never too late to start a new career, a new hobby, learn a new skill, or make a new friend.  It means no project is too big, no goal to high.  It means, no matter what struggles you are going through now, there is hope for a better time.  Time to live, love, learn, and enjoy.

• If you are reading this and are 30 (ish) like me, it means that your life is only just starting.  You can remember about 20 years before now but you have 70 more years ahead.
• If you are reading this at 50 and you spent your life till 20 in school you might have 30 years behind you but you could have 50 ahead of you.
• If you are reading this at 70 you might be a bit over halfway, but think how much more time you have left.  30 years to me is more than I can remember or wrap my mind around – it is a forever
• If you are reading this at 90 I think you’re awesome!

Live like you will live to be 100+

I think a full, intentional, beautiful, and contributing life is a balance of these two things.  (tweet this)

However, too often we get pulled into living like we will die in a week, or a month or a year.  We act like if we can just finish this project, put up with this job, lose some weight, potty train the kids, push back emotional pain, get out of debt…. and so much more…

…if we can just hold on a bit longer, try a bit harder, suffer through a bit more – then we will be okay.

Because I am a woman let me try and explain it with ice cream:

• Live like you will die tomorrow – eat the ice cream
• Live like you will die next week – suffer through dieting because all the pain should be worth it
• Live like you will die at 100 – understand that you can’t eat ice cream before bed every night.  Look deeper at stress or emotional triggers that you have created the ice cream habit to cover and deal with them.  Eat the ice cream when you really want it and grow beyond the emotional pain or stress that makes habit unhealthy.

I struggle with this.  (not the ice cream… I don’t usually say ‘no’ to it).  I struggle to just get through one project, or one busy week, or until the kids get a bit older.  This last year I have been learning much more to live in the present and to understand that life isn’t always the last 6 miles of a marathon.  I still need lots of practice to apply these concepts to my life.. but it is worth taking the time to learn (I still have almost 70 years to master it).  :)

What difference are these ideas going to make for you today?  (if you are reading RSS join us in the comments)

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