Wednesday, September 11, 2013

What WILL they put on your gravestone?

"Don't spend too long on that, they won't put it on your gravestone," are words, or words to that effect, we have all heard many times. Take a walk through a graveyard and stop for a read from time to time and you'll see that what actually gets put on gravestones are things like: "To Ethel, wife and mother, she will be sorely missed," or "For Fred, husband to Lottie, the world is a richer place because he lived." And that's flattering headstone engravers by picking the most imaginative examples and misquoting them by erring on the side of interesting. So what is really meant to be implied as the opposite of what they won't put on your gravestone?
     In the Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman film ‘Being John Malkovich,’ Maxine says: “I think the world is divided into those who go after what they want and then those who don’t. The passionate ones….they may not get what they want, but at least they remain vital, so when they lie on their death beds they have few regrets…and the ones who don’t go after what they want, well who gives a shit about them anyway.” That’s a  brutal assessment, but after many years of reflection, the truth in it to me is this. We learn to associate getting what we want with the bratty child who wants a new toy or to get their own way; or with the unscrupulous businessperson or politician who will stop at nothing to achieve wealth or power.  But if you look deeper, what you want is at the core of who you are and is the source of your most intense motivations and reserves of energy. When you are going after what you want you will have more vigour and staying power and although it won’t necessarily be the easy way it will feel good on balance because you will be being true to yourself and, in the deepest sense of the phrase, you will be doing your best. If you act from the core of who you are, you are going after what you want; and people will care because they will see that who you are and what you do matters. And that's the mark you will leave on the world and thus what will be left of you after you're gone: an epitaph worth carving in stone.
     A better question is therefore: what do you want them to put on your gravestone? What I want on mine is something like: Rob Russell was a true friend who lived courageously and brought insight and stimulation wherever he went. I've still got some work to do to live up to that, but why leave writing your epitaph until it's too late to be of any use to you?  What do you want on your gravestone?

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