When you reach the end of your life, what do you want to have done?

This is a slightly different take on the ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ question.

What do you want to have done?

When you look back, do you want to have written a book? Opened a bar that feels like a strange dream the moment you walk in the door? Travelled to Morocco and spent a month in the Sahara on a camel (obviously dismounting to sleep and eat, etc.)? Do you want to have learned how to play the euphonium, or had a pet macaw (from all accounts - as much if not more work than having a puppy)?

And then, what could you do today, in order to make that your reality later in life?

Sign up for a basket weaving class, or ask your elderly aunt to teach you how to make preserved peaches. Find a Facebook community online related to something you’re curious about to help you figure out if teaching a parrot to talk is really something you want to do. Start writing for ten minutes a day to build the habit that will eventually result in a book. Start taking photographs of clouds.

Whatever you want to look back and be able to say ‘I did that’, and smile - this is your gentle encouragement to begin it today. And if you’ve already begun - to take another step or a bigger step.

Kind of like me with hiking - there are moments of beauty and goodness when I’m dragging myself up a hill, but when I get to the top, I’m so happy that was something I did (and I’m even happier when I get to the bottom again, and get to sit down feeling that satisfied-tired feeling).

Here are a few of mine.

I want to have written multiple books (I’m working on the second draft of my first novel at the moment).

I want to have been to Morocco. I want to have spent some time living in a castle in Scotland. I’m fairly sure I want to have been friends with a macaw, but knowing how high maintenance they are, the jury is still kind of out on that one. I want to have been consistently creative, continuing to refine my skill in drawing and painting. I want to have lived somewhere beautiful in a community of tiny houses with creative and kind people, telling stories around a fire in the evenings. I possibly want to have joined a circus for a while…

What are some of yours?

* I don’t think I want to be a human zebra, as in the photo that goes with this post, but I like the feeling of stepping into another world that it evokes…