Dear Friend, do you know where the most valuable land in the world is?
I tend to wander around to some fairly remote parts of the world … and I have actually been there, several times. Can you guess?
You and I have just come to the culmination of five hundred and twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes. That’s 526,600 minutes, one year to be exact! Every one of last year’s minutes was mine, as a gift from my Father. That is a fairly significant amount of time and it begs opportunity to invest a bit of effort to reflect / exam the dimensions of my life: my finances, my family, my occupation, my health, my spirituality, my recreation, my studies and where am I headed with it all.
I was just caught through a note by Todd Henry (founder of Accidental Creative, a company that helps creative people generate ideas. He wrote a book: The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice.) Someone asked him: “Do you know what the most valuable land in the world is?” Todd was thinking, “Well, probably the diamond mines of Africa, or maybe the oil fields of the middle east?” “No,” his friend replied, “it’s the graveyard. Because along with all of those people who are buried there, there are unfulfilled dreams, unwritten books, masterpieces not created, trips never taken, ventures not started, relationships not reconciled. THAT is the most valuable land in the world.”
Now, at the beginning of 2012, I’m poking through my 2011 Journals and evaluating what things I did or didn’t accomplish in these past 500,000 minutes. I’m asking: “If I died now, would I die empty?” Is my “To Do” list all checked off? Or would I be admitted to a cemetery with things left that I should have done?
I’m rather enjoying the exercise. I quietly realize that my mind goes so fast and far that there will always be heaps of things I never will accomplish. But I do have dreams that I’ve reduced to goals; steps within projects that are being accomplished; and relationships that are being maintained and developed. I have a measure of peace about these last 526,600 minutes, even in the midst of busyness. Dying empty IS an accomplishable goal! It just means that I have to empty myself each day with whatever needs to be decided, spoken, created or written. I have no time to fantasize about what I might do ‘someday’. Life is very short. The question is, will I die full of unexecuted ideas or will I die empty?
John Wesley is credited with saying:
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
Working toward ‘dying empty’! … john
(original e-newsletter post – Jan 2012)
