The CA Family Play #5: Life Is Art, Death Is Certain

"Accomplishments are fleeting.  Your life will be over in the blink of an eye.  If there is a heaven, take some beautiful moments up there with you to remember.  Don’t sit in the sky thinking “I sure worked my way up the corporate ladder.”  Smile and laugh remembering your loved ones and the time you swam in the ocean and the broken umbrella kiss in the rain and the time you taught your child how to juggle.  And if there is a heaven, smile without regrets that your life was a piece of art and you treated it as such.  May you love in every moment and enjoy the temporary beauty of life." - Markus Almond, Brooklyn To Mars

Near death experiences that lead to spiritual awakenings that lead to a profoundly changed attitude toward life = reoccurring theme and topic of conversation this week

Hopefully, we won't be experiencing anything near death any time soon, but it's incredibly compelling and inspiring to hear about it after the fact.

Going through hard sh*t is how resiliency is developed.

On one hand...you wouldn't wish hardship on anyone, especially not someone you love...

But on the other hand...that very hardship is the thing that forces you to develop that strength of character, self-awareness, compassion and insight that'd you wouldn't get otherwise.

So, in a way, I'm glad for it, glad for the pain, glad for the opportunity to grow, glad for the awareness that is gained through tough experiences...for myself and for others. It's all a gift.

And once the sh*t has stopped hitting the fan for a second...

 I ask myself..."What really matters?"

"What do I want to do with this short time I have here on earth?"

"How do I keep my focus on what is truly important when the distractions of life are threatening to take up my every moment?"

I ask myself because I know that death could drop by my place at any time, so today I choose to LIVE...to live artfully...and love people as much as possible.

Loves,
Virginia

"We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future.  It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance."  - Marcel Proust