one month to live

it’s january 28th, 2009. do you know where your new year’s commitments are? did you resolve to “make all things fine in 2009?”

one of my best next-things has been involving myself with a group of six other women who gather weekly to deal with real-life issues in the context of a book study. our new-year’s book choice is “one month to live ~ 30 days to a no-regrets life.” at first the title sounded gimmicky – and i hate gimmicks. The premise of the book is that most of us live in denial that we’re ever going to die – and thus we live our days in mediocre ways, always telling ourselves that there’s plenty of time to get our stuff together. readers must pretend we have only 30 days to live. now after the 11th day of reading, journaling, discussing and working the material i’ve discovered there’s freedom in the process.

everyone in the group has committed to flesh out each day’s reading/journaling in no less than a half-hour a day… writing notes and answering questions IN our books – getting messy and honest and saying how it really is. the authors (kerry and chris shook) claim that healthy things grow so we’re simply focusing on getting healthy.

the four parts /principles in the book that explore individual health are:

• live passionately
• love completely
• learn humbly
• leave boldly

my favorite “epiphany” in the first part came from this quote by howard thurman, “don’t ask what the world needs. ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”