A few days ago, I was watching an episode of The Middle together with my wife. At a certain point, one of the characters started talking about what’s happening when we die. Basically, we get a funeral stone on which it is written the date we were born, a dash and the date we died. So our entire life is represented by a dash on a funeral stone.
Before you get all depressing, think about this idea for a second. If our life gets represented by a dash, is it really that important every little shit we have to face on a daily basis? Is it really that important that a random dude or dudette flips us the bird or cusses us or gives us a strange look? Is it really that important what people are going to say if we do what we want to do with our life? In the end, it’s our dash. Not theirs. If their dash is all about trying to bring others down, it’s their problem. Our problem is our own dash.
Let’s put it this way. Do you think future generations will talk about those who tried to hold people down or they will talk about those who lived their lives at its fully potential? What kind of characters do we have now in our history books? About whose dash do we talk? The dash is too short to pursue perfection, but it’s long enough to have awesome imperfections.
What would you look like for your dash to be remembered when you’re gone?