Live A Life That Matters

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end for every living human.
There will be no more sunrises, no seconds, minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else or become cosmic dust.
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 disappear completely.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that might have seemed so important will fade away.
At the end, it won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be totally 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 to others and the world around you. What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught and gave back.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate you.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone.
What will matter are not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you unconditionally.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what you did in a positive sense.
Living a life that matters does not happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
I therefore recently chose to live a life that matters.

Author: Dr. Hudson