"Deathly Hellos"
(This is from Edition 67 of The Upleveler, our weekly smartletter)
Learning from the Merchant of Death
35-year-old Alfred was known for inventing dynamite and profiting from arms companies like Bofors. So when a French newspaper, thinking him dead, erroneously published his obituary, the headline called him ‘Merchant of Death’. Alfred was shaken to learn what the world actually thought about him. He then turned to philanthropy.
This is why Alfred Nobel bequeathed his fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes. Nobel was lucky (and so was the world!) because the obituary helped him re-evaluate his priorities. He could then deliberately work towards the legacy he wanted to create for himself.
Unlike Alfred, we seldom get a chance to reflect upon how people will remember us. We are too busy living our “today”! So what will your obituary look like? One way is to write it yourself.
Writing it can be quite scary. When you start the exercise, it can leave you with a feeling of emptiness: you wonder where your time is being spent and whether you are making an impact. You may also feel disappointed because you recall the things you wanted to accomplish when you were younger. You may have seen others and thought you’d never become like them. And yet, here you are.
But if you soldier on, you think about everything you have done right and the people you have positively impacted.
Creating an obituary can help you understand how you want to be remembered and what you want to do from here on. This brings clarity of purpose and positive action. Your choices are more deliberate because you can now see how they contribute to your obituary.
When you do this this exercise, we recommend you keep these in mind:
Get the tense right
Assume you are dead and write the obituary in the past tense! It’s a minor but powerful tweak.
Laundry list, then prune
Start with a laundry list of everything you always wanted to do. Once your list is ready, you can prioritise and prune.
Who were you?
The obit is not just about the things you accomplished. Write about the kind of person you want to be remembered as.
Don’t give up
Expect this to be an unsettling experience. But the clarity you’re about to get will be worth the short-term despair.
Think of the human mind as consisting of "a rational rider" and "an emotional elephant". The elephant can summon great energy to move and the rider can direct it to the desired destination. Once your obituary is ready, the elephant will be all charged up. Remember to equip the rider with a good plan to make the rest of your life happen.
Tip: use this as a reflection exercise whenever you are restless about your life's direction.
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