What If...

I was reading something Sandy wrote on his Faceparty profile.. And it really struck a chord. This bit really made me think:

"Imagine how you would feel if your doctor today diagnosed you with a terminal illness and gave you say, two months to live. Abandoning all pretences, all facades, all the acts that we have perfected in our time, how would you really evaluate your life? What would you hold to be the things that were really important to you?"

How many people actually think about stuff like that? It's not something most people want to think about, let alone discuss - heck, for some members of the Chinese community, it's considered taboo to even tell someone how you want your funeral run!

But why are we so afraid to break our lives down to size? Is it because at this point where none of us know when the end is, we're afraid that facing whatever short-comings we have will either force us to change, or make us feel exceedingly guilty if we don't?

Or is it because it's easier to live life clinging to the bliss of ignorance, not only about the world outside our little cocoon, but of ourselves too as people? There's always a possibility we may not like what we see....

I thought about that and I found that what I would regret the most is not having the relationship with God that I most certainly have the capacity for, because I once had it, but now am just too lazy and caught up in my own life sometimes to even think about it. I think it's time for me to do something about that.. 20 is a good time as any to start again.

If I could change one thing, it'd the fact that my quick temper and sometimes caustic tongue has hurt probably more people than I'll ever know. I hate to admit it, but I know that I can be really mean sometimes, and more often than not, the people I love most are on the receiving end of it, and it's not something I'm proud of at all.

But that said, what I hold to be important has never, and hopefully will never, change. My life more or less revolves 'round the people I love - I suppose, this blog is a pretty good testament to that.

And I treasure them more than anything else I've ever had or known, even if I sometimes have a lousy way of showing it. My hope would be that I could, at the very least, say that the people I love know that I do. And to me, that's what counts the most.

When I die, I want to leave behind good memories - those are the things I know I would treasure the most, were the roles reversed. If knowing I loved them could've made just one person happy, then I know my life's been worth something.

And I suppose at the end of the day, that's what all of us really want, isn't it?