SO…HOW DO YOU THINK THAT WENT?

I imagine that when we leave this life and we move on to what’s next, we will have the opportunity to ‘sit down’ + have a conversation – a debrief, if you will – with our great creator.

I imagine it will go something like this…

“So. How do you think that went? What did you do with the precious, precious gift you were given?”

…

My parents taught me that when you’re a guest in someone’s house you don’t leave a mess behind to be cleaned up. You don’t even just clean up after yourself. When you leave, you’ve made your guests home or lives better. You’ve made their life easier.

When my time on this earth has ended, I want to be able to say, with confidence, “I made the world a bit better”. I’ve taken this gift, I’ve grabbed hold of my potential, + I did something positive with it. Potential. The extent of all we are capable of, should we only try to grow into it. Like a blazing suit of armor.

It’s not enough to just be fall-on-your-knees grateful. We have been given life, talent, skills, desire, knowledge. We have been given so much potential. We need to wake up every morning + ask ourselves, “What are we doing today to grow into our great potential + make this world a little better?”

The Summer Day
 
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver