What will be on your tombstone?
The one in the image above jumped out at me for its utter simplicity. (In case you can’t see the photo, the inscription says, “C.L. Died 22 Aug 1783”.) Perhaps C.L. didn’t leave behind enough funds to carve additional letters into the stone. Or, perhaps that’s all that needed to be said. I prefer to believe it was the latter.
What message will you leave behind when you are gone?
A friend of mine reacted to last week’s post about Admiration vs Jealousy, sharing with me that he found out that he was admired and respected by someone only after that person died. The revelation meant the world to my friend as he held this person in equally high regard. That got me thinking.
Who do you admire? Who do you respect? Have you told them?
As it turns out, I admire this particular friend of mine. So, when he shared his comments with me, I took that opportunity to let him know it. He was touched.
How does it make you feel to know that someone admires and/or respects you? If feels pretty good, doesn’t it? Why, then, do we not share our feelings of admiration more readily?
Don’t make those you appreciate wait until you’re dead to find out. Pick up the phone. Send them a card. Shoot them a quick text message. You don’t need to make a big deal about it. Simply be earnest. You can be specific, such as, “I respect you for the way that you…” Or, “I admire you for the way that you…” Perhaps you might tell them that you look up to them, that you find them to be inspiring. The important thing is to let them know.
Let me start. I appreciate YOU for reading this blog. I appreciate the comments, the encouragement and the challenges to my words. I hope that you find some value here along the way. [Note: Comments on the blog itself are disabled because it’s too much effort to ward off the auto-bots and other nefarious attempts to use my blog as a platform from which to attack others. But, email comments are always welcome as are comments left on the various social media platforms where this gets published.]
As for my tombstone, I hope that I will have said the things that needed to be said while I was alive, making any words on the stone superfluous.