The Inconvenience of Death

My friend and I were talking last night about this A Year To Live experience that we've both been a part of since last November. "It's so funny. I'm finding myself saying to myself  'I don't have time for death!' I have too much to do!" she shared. "I know. Isn't it crazy how death feels like an inconvenience?" I said.

But the reality is that we never know when death will arrive for us, and we won't always have the opportunity to clean up everything in our lives that we would like to before we die. That's the nice thing about this year to live experience: It's giving me the opportunity to at least look at all those places in my life that are messy and start to clean them up. Maybe if I do this as a regular practice, by the time I really die, my heart will be lighter and my life will be in an easier place for those dealing with what's left behind...

My friend and I also talked about all the things we're not able to do before November 1st that we once thought we'd want to do before we die - travel to new places, do certain things, have certain experiences... And we realized that neither of us care about those things anymore. Yep, it might have been nice, but what matters the most to each of us is what we are doing right now - today - in this moment.

How present are we in what we're doing? How fully are we participating in each moment of our lives? How willing are we to be with what is rather than contemplating what we wish was or what we're not going to be able to do? How open are we to what is, even if it's something uncomfortable?

Because what we realize is that whatever it is, it's our life! This is our life! For however much time we have in it, isn't it more valuable to live it openly and fully than to close around it, resist or push away what is?