So here’s an oddly brutal exercise I find very useful…
Imagine you’re laying in bed one night asleep and a sharp pain wakes you. You are visited by a thought or a being that lets you know, without the slightest doubt, that you will be dead by morning and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it. At first you fight it and panic, but soon understand this is futile and so lay back, resigned to your fate.
What do you think about? Does your life flash before your eyes? If you’re like most people, what will arise in the mind with greater and greater force, is unfinished business. Not the unfinished business of yesterday that made it difficult to fall asleep. Not the to-do list on your night stand. Not the grocery list on the kitchen counter. This to-do list is the stuff that you most deeply want to happen in your life but hasn’t. It’s the stuff that will keep you from dying happy.
It’s a wise thing to keep aware of what’s on that list, and to keep it current. It can change from year to year.
And it’s a wise thing to finish up what business you can on that list, or as a good friend of mine who builds things likes to put it, “Let’s get ‘er done.”