By now you have probably been to at least one funeral. You may have even sat in the front row at both of your parents’ funerals and realized it’s your turn next in the box.
You know by now that funerals are for the folks left behind – a way to say goodbye and reminisce about the person who died. No doubt you also realize that the kind of life a person lived depended entirely on them.
We all know folks who faced more trials and tribulations than most of us and yet remained cheerful and optimistic and were always glad to help a friend or neighbour. They just seemed to bring a little extra light into everyone’s life.
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On the other hand, we know of people whose lives were not especially difficult, but who felt hard done by and unsupported and imagined disaster around every corner.
So the question is, what will people say about how you lived your life after you die? Will they see you as having been the kind of person you want them to see
you as?
In the goal-setting part of my holistic management training programs, I use an exercise called “Going to a Funeral” from Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People.
The purpose of this exercise is to help you identify values that are
particularly important to you. Once you have done that, you can look at the way you are living your life now and see whether you need to make changes.
Grab a pencil and give this a try:
In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. As you walk down to the front of the funeral parlour or chapel and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to face with yourself.
This is your funeral, three years from today.
All those in attendance have come to honour you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life.
As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There are to be four speakers. The first is from your family: children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who have come from all over to attend.
The second speaker is one of your friends, someone who can give a sense of who you were as a person. The third is from your
industry, such as livestock, cropping or inputs, and the fourth is from your church or a community
organization.
Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, wife, father or mother would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of industry member?
What strength of character would you like them to have seen in you?
What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives?
After writing down what you would want people to say about you, which in many ways is your personal vision, write down what prevents you from being the kind of person you want to
be. In other words, what are the obstacles to attaining your personal vision?
And remember, this is what you want people to say about you, not what you are afraid they would say if you died right now. If you are not living the kind of life you want, there is still time to change.
I sometimes ask myself these questions: when I get to my deathbed, am I going to look back at my life and say, “I’m glad I lived it that way?” Is what I am
doing right now one of the things I will look back on and say, “I’m glad I did that?”
If it isn’t, it is time to start making changes. Why wait until I am going to my own funeral?
Edmonton-based Noel McNaughton is a sponsored speaker with the Canadian Farm Business Management Council. He can be reached at 780-432-5492, e-mail:farm@midlife-men.com or visit www.midlife-men.com.
