As If Your Life Depended On It

What if your life was threatened? What if the amount of time you had left was somehow put at risk? You’d worry about all that you would lose, you’d worry about the people you are leaving behind, and you’d take massive action and do something about it, wouldn’t you?

Thankfully, your life, at least as it pertains to the time you have available to you, isn’t being threatened now. But there are threats to your life worth avoiding, too. Specifically threats to the quality of your life.

Life Is More Than Time

What if the quality of your life is being threatened? The quality of your life is as important as the quantity, and in many cases more important. If you agree with this statement, and surely you must, then you should act with equal or greater urgency when the quality of your life is threatened.

• Relationships: The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships. There are countless things that threaten your relationships, but the greatest threats are largely neglect and complacency. More than money or some other measurement of success, relationships are the scale you will use to take account of your life. If your relationships are not what you need them to be, then you have to take action with the greatest sense of urgency.
• Purpose and Meaning: If the quality of your life is hampered by the lack of meaning and purpose in your work, you have to make a choice. You have to change your work, or you have to give yourself over the work you are doing now. The truth of the matter is that you can find meaning and purpose in all kinds of work if you make the decision to give yourself over to it. If you aren’t making a contribution, you need to make changes.

A Life Well Lived

Your life isn’t measured only in time. It is measured in the quality of the life you live, the difference you make for the people that matter to you, and the contribution you make. Because this is true, you need to act as if your life depends upon you getting the big things right.

Your intentions and your actions matter. It’s important to get the big things right when there are no second chances.