Getting Back to You
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Image by www.laurahunterphotography.com
A Hospice nurse was asked what was the most common regret her patients had. Her response? The biggest regret dying people have is that they never lived.
If you were to die tomorrow, would you say you’ve lived?
I guess it all depends on how you define living, Rossy, doesn’t it? Perhaps. Let’s say that living is when you know who you are, honor yourself and follow your own inner compass no matter what. It’s when you chart your own path, creating as you go the moments, the people and relationships, and the things that bring you joy, so that at any point, when you’re faced with challenges, you don’t fall victim to them, but rather, knowing the stuff you’re made of, you navigate through them in your self-assuredness.
Roz Savage was a management consultant at an investment bank in London. She led a comfy middle-class life: She was married, had a well-paying job, a house in the suburbs, even a little red sports car. But she didn’t feel fulfilled. So, she did an exercise where she wrote two obituaries for herself. One based on where she saw herself going in her current life, and one based on the life she aspired to live. The first one, she had to put down. It was too depressing. The second one, energized her. And even though she didn’t know exactly what she would do at the time, she knew it was totally different from what she was doing.
So she left the job, the hub and the burbs and a few years and some intensive training later, she became the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic. It took her 103 days and nights. In that time, her four oars, her cooking stove, and her navigation gear all broke. SHE nearly broke, but it was in the complete and profound silence of the ocean that she found herself.
In a short film about her voyage, entitled Rowing the Atlantic, Roz tells us “It doesn’t matter the person I was at the start of the race. She doesn’t exist anymore.” That’s the beauty of taking ourselves where we want to go.
It’s not so much about reaching our goal, as it is about the transformation we undergo during our journey.
If you Google Roz Savage, you won’t find the 52-year-old under management consultant. Noooo. She’s described as the first woman to row solo, not just across the Atlantic, but the Pacific and Indian oceans as well. She’s an environmental advocate, a writer and a speaker, was named Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic, and lectures at Yale on Courage.
When someone searches your name on Google, how would you like to show up?
A while back, I impersonated my son giving my eulogy as a speech at a Toastmasters meeting and while it was all in jest, the exercise was very revealing to me. When you take the time to think about how others will remember you, it truly makes you ponder, not only about what you’re doing but, like Roz, how you feel about what you’re doing. Is your life fulfilling or does it feel bland? It’s as if you come to terms with your reason for being.
Are you living your sense of purpose or are you just going along for the ride?