Tuesday, August 3, 2010

What will matter . . . .

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, 
hours or days.
All things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten
will pass to someone else.

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 finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans 
and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important 
will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from
or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not your success
but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned
but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity,
compassion, courage, or sacrifice
that enriched, empowered or encouraged others
to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence
but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories,
but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered,
by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance, but of choice.

-Unknown


Photo via Google Images

5 comments:

  1. I absolutely love this post! Did you write it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Connie, this is fantastic and so true.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous - I too love the above post. No, I did not write this one. I found it online and it was signed "unknown". I thought it was definitely worth sharing, however. Glad you enjoyed it. : )

    Hi Mridula! Glad you enjoyed as well!

    ReplyDelete
  4. it's by Michael Josephson who started Character Counts

    ReplyDelete
  5. Susannah......thank you so much for sharing the details of the author!!

    ReplyDelete

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