The main reason for my obituary pass deals with mentioning death. College. (Don't go together, do they?) Freshman year! Isn't this a decisive, lively stage of life? If so, should we not attempt to grasp its significance and clutch, seize the LIFE before us? I am not implying we should not plan our courses of action in advance. Like Basil S. Walsh said, "If you don't know where you are going, how can you expect to get there?"
Let's create and delineate what we want to accomplish. Even the most (seemingly) absurd and improbable achievements, things, places, careers. Ones so sweet, alluring, tempting... and quenching, like that Häagen Dazs Sorbet Sipper on a sultry day. Whatever you dreamed of as a kid, when no one yet bothered to put you down and tell you that you couldn't, you shouldn't, you wouldn't. Want to be an astronomer? Put it on paper. Hang the line on your cinder block wall, scribble it with a Sharpie, stare at it, foster and kindle a fire, glow ardent with aim.
As one concept that Danna Walker pointed out indicates - the subconscious mind works for you. Once an idea and desire so strong and fervent is instilled within the fibers of your being, you better know you're getting it, you're getting there. With a "grand plan," she said, "the subconscious is working for you and things along the way just lead to it [what you want]. Opportunities open up." Or perhaps your mind turns receptive. Once a path is delineated, it is conscious to opportunities, and you act accordingly. We need to delineate to act purposefully, walk the right roads, end up at the desired destinations.
As goes for myself, I've laid out my masterplan, and I review it to consider my current sources of joy and plausible choices of career. But no obituaries. I prefer the attitude of life and the now. Pondering over my gravestone makes me uncomfortable, just as the notions of a "bucket list" and the "1,000 Books/Movies/Records/Places You Must Read/See/Hear/Visit BEFORE YOU DIE." Popular culture rushes us. Hurry, hurry, before you die! I'm suprised the Grim Reaper isn't juxtaposed on the book cover, scythe suspended ominously over all your dream island locations. Get to Majorca, quick, before it's too late! Death is a fact of life, but at this stage in ours, should we regard it as imminent? Granting thought to the notion of not being alive, free to frolic... not appealing!
Perhaps I over-thought this obituary writing-advice. I just found it very distressing.
But regardless. Live out today like you mean it - is what matters. (And Danna Walker also said not to worry so much. Slightly conflicting, but just maybe, no need for predictions of life/death at 80? Or 150?) Just to manifest my preferred take on existence, one I derived from the genius of Dale Carnegie, I would like to share a few lines I've got scotch-taped to my desk, to see and reflect upon daily:
Saluation to the Dawn
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence
>The bliss of growth
>>The glory of action
>>>The splendor of beauty.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of
>>happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation to the dawn.
Kalidasa, Indian Poet
No whens, ifs, buts. No "when I am a junior", "once I graduate", "when I'll have a family" ("when I grow up"). No looking to the future to reap your joys of life, no hold-offs. Breathe and create now. Touch your nose, blink your eyes, pull your ear. Tough developing a sufficiently forcible ending that would exude the value we so frequently disregard. Simply miss.
This instance is life in the purest.
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