Whether you are ready or not, someday your life will come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours, or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame, and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do list will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from, or on what of the tracks you lived at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant, even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What matter is not how many people you know, how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone.
What matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who love you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstances, but of choice. Choose to live a life that matters.
