If this were my last day

I would hold the door for the person behind me as always.

I would call people whom I have avoided and face those dark alleys once petrified.

I would lay down my guards, strip off my veneers, and empathize with others.

I would clean up my desk, make my bed and re-arrange my shoes. One movie touched on this subject, whereby our cancer-contracted heroine went out and charged for her Manhattan flat, ordered in electric guitar and decided to live a life she had always wanted. Another movie, called “A Single Man“. Once his partner was dead, the main character tried his hand at suicide. But he was anal when it comes to being spotless.  This helped thwarting his plan: he tried to put the gun in his mouth, imagine  blood splat on the wall and bed sheet.

He even tried to slip inside a sleeping bag to avoid leaving behind a mess.

Last day or first day, we are creatures of habits.

Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result (like squeezing the toothpaste the same way, hoping for magic).

At the end of the movie, our “single man” said he had a moment of clarity.

We can see things as they are ironically in hindsight more than in foresight.

George Harrison put it in “While my guitar gently weeps” that “with every mistake, we will sure be learning”.

Enlisting death to live better sounds like a poor strategy, but

pre-mortem works better than post-mortem. Begin with the end in mind.Those of us who have been 7-habit practitioners know this all too well (BTW Steven Covey, the author, did leave a good legacy as a Master trainer of human potential).

So, if this were my last day, I would live fearlessly, unleashing and emptying my reserves.

And perhaps there comes a moment of clarity: seeing myself and understanding myself as others have seen it all along.

I would forgive both friends and enemies: friends, for not being true, and enemies, for being so true. You see, life comes as a package.

And up to us, to make order out of chaos, to find beauty in the beast: a single mom struggles to raise a deformed child while juggling another ball in the air (aging parent), the damn residue of Agent Orange or the Anniversary of Nagasaki. Chemical companies and cleaning products, weapon merchants and nutrition vendors, fast food and slow growth, mortgage lending and housing bubble. What do they took us for? The already-dead? Even if we sit still, practicing yoga or eating yogurt, the aging process is taking place, regardless.

I now understand that less is more. Live simply, and die tidily.

And if it’s the end, then, it’ s actually the beginning (T.S. Elliot).

Many people actually become influential more in death than in life (Van Gogh, Proust).

So if this were my last day, I would still be eager to see what’s next, invent and open to possibilities. And if I lived tidily, I would leave behind only few loose ends.

Oh, and I would say thank-you to the many whose help I couldn’t do without.

Like a book’s acknowledgment section, my list is long, but I know I am bound to leave out someone. That’s the part I need to work on right till the end, where the book closes. For now, it’s still an open one, full of surprises at every turn. No, it’s not my last day. I’ve only just begun, with the weight of death fully accounted for and acknowledged.

He who knows the why can endure the how.