Write your Living Obituary
- Rekindle your Dormant Passion!
- Welcome to DanielNgari.com
- What does Success mean to you?
- What do you Focus on?
- You reap what you sow.
- What is Kaizen?
- Run your life like a Corporation.
- Financial Freedom Manifesto
- The Amazing Power of Compounding
- Travel Light to Success
- The Law of Giving
- Write your Living Obituary
- Rising above Mediocrity
- Shun Intolerance
- Are you a Prisoner or a Hostage?
Your success or failure in life will be reflected on your obituary unless someone manipulates the truth on your behalf. Writing your own private obituary is an out of the box way of thinking about your life and what you call success.
It is an excellent way to put your life in perspective and I recommend that you try it. Many people would rather not think about it. There is comfort in not thinking about death. It is a taboo subject. But given a long enough time line we shall all cease to exist. Why not use this taboo subject to change the course of your destiny to improve the days and years ahead?
Every year after Christmas, I write my own obituary. It is not as sick as it sounds. There are even schools teaching people to do that. But you don’t need such schools to get up to speed. I don’t just sit there fantasize about my inevitable death. No, instead it is normally a solemn moment of reflection of my life up to that point in time. Then I base my future plans (New Year’s resolutions) on what I want my life to become.
Be warned: Some of the methods for succeeding in life that I will teach you over the next few months may be unorthodox and may conflict with your social conditioning. I understand that one man’s meat might be another man’s poison. Ok that is out the way.
What is an Obituary?
An obituary is an attempt to give an account of the texture and significance of the life of someone who has recently died. Many news organizations have on file pre-written obituaries for notable individuals who are still alive.
You don’t have to be dead to have an obituary. It does not have to be written by someone else. In fact I recommend that you regularly write your own obituary as a way of keeping you in check and closer to your true mission in life.
Types of obituaries you should write:
I write two types of obituaries and each serves a different purpose. You should consider writing both types of obituaries regularly or at least once every year.
- Private - This is where you should give a detailed analysis of your life. Who you really are. Not what people see, but who you really are. This is the obituary that is only known to you and your God. I normally tear up mine right after writing it, I don’t want it falling on the wrong hands. It is where you map your thoughts and the core of your existence. Be brutally honest about your character and feelings.
- Public – This is most likely the obituary that will make it to the newspaper pages or on your funeral program. It is how other people see you. Have fun with this one. Think of all the people in your life and think about what they would say about you, publicly, and the thoughts they would have on you in reality. Start with your partner, children, family and close friends.
Reshape your next obituary:
The benefit of writing a living obituary is that you can reshape your next one. You can make changes in your life in different areas to improve yourself. Did you know that only about 10 events, actions or choices determine your destiny? Think of your life so far… how many choices or major actions have determined where you are? I challenge you to find more than 10 major choices.
Below is a list of areas you can reshape your life after stock taking through an obituary.
1. Character
- Who are you? How do you treat people? Are you an honest person? Are you affectionate, ambitious, argumentative, arrogant, courageous, cruel, dependable, frank, industrious, loving or lazy?
- How do others’ perceive you? Have you hurt others? Is there something you can do to improve your relationship with someone you love?
- Do you have a genuine desire to improve some of you negative character traits and improve the positive ones?
2. Family & Friends
- Writing a living obituary will help you focus on who are the key people in your life. Sometimes when chasing success many people tend to ignore family.
- Decide who you want to call family and friends. Keep in touch with them. The greatest gift you can give them is your time and attention. If you are not around very often, always remember to take a camera with you so you can capture those life moments. Those photos and memories may be all you leave them with. Be generous.
3. Contribution
- You should always leave a place better than you found it. Every time you write your own obituary think of the contribution you have made to society, and people you have met. Are you a cheerful giver?
- If you feel that you have not contributed enough to society then make changes in your life. This year I made a decision to launch this blog. I could have chosen to continue making a living online and never show my face or share my true thoughts. But I decided against it after writing my obituary last year. By sharing a part of me, I am better able to inspire people. I want to contribute to the lives of my friends and the internet community and have it as one of my achievements in life.
4. Career
- Many people are classified by the works they did in their lives. What are you doing with your life? Is it something you would be proud to have on your obituary?
- You should follow your passion and use your God given talents to pursue a career that is both rewarding and enjoyable. Use your living obituary to decide what kind of jobs you will take and what career options to pursue. Make sure that whatever you do is congruent with your mission in life.
5. Money
- Money makes the world go round. You don’t want to leave your loved ones with debt if you can avoid it. Every time you write your obituary, ask yourself if you are in a good place financially and if you are doing anything to improve your life and for the people you leave behind.
- Having money will help you do things in life that you would not normally do without money. You can use money to help others and make a difference in people lives. You will be remembered for that long after you die. You may not have the money to leave a big chunk to charity like Bill Gates or the Ford Foundation, but you can work to have enough money to satisfy your needs and give to others in need.
- You can also make a will and estate plans to how your wealth will be distributed once you die. If you have accumulated wealth in your life time, consider writing a will detailing your last wishes. A Will is a document that contains your instructions on how you want your property to be distributed after you have died.
Summary
We have touched on a taboo subject of planning your obituary. Depending on how you look at this subject, you may come up with ideas of what is really is important in life. Sometimes we spend chasing things that don’t matter. I hope this will help you put things in perspective and help you improve your life.
—————————————-
It has just hit me that this is blog post number 13. Some people have issues with that number, I don’t 
—————————————-
Sharing – Please share this article with your friends on Facebook or other Bookmarking services on the Share this button. You can also send it via email. Thank you.
Other articles you may enjoy:
- What If 2010 Was Your Last Year on Earth? What would you do if you only had six more months to live? Who would...
- Do you have a Blueprint for Success? Success does not just happen. You must first purpose it in your mind, resolve to...
- What is Your Philosophy? I grew up in Kenya in the Nyayo era. This was the period in which...
- Setting Incredible Resolutions What if you decided to set goals so ambitious that everyone around you thought of...
- The Inspiring Legends Series There are a handful of people who have touched me at at critical junctions in...
- What I Learned Through Blogging in 2009 – Part One In January 2009, I set out on a public self improvement journey on this blog....
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leaving a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader or via email.
Daniel,
My name is Albert from Lagos Nigeria. I came across your blog and i really found it very interesting. Good to know people like you are still very much around. If we could keep thinking and enforcing our thoughts, our continent would rise beyond our imaginations.
About writing your obituary, i guess the best way to look at it is what people will say about you when you are no more. its not a scary exercise. it helps in building your own expectations and it guides how you live your daily life.
[Reply]
can we stop calling this an orbituary. lets call it a life story coz life is journey. its only an orbituary after passing away
[Reply]
my personalities(i have many) are always in conflict but i can write my obituary anytime of day.
[Reply]
@ Nyomi – Thanks for your kind words. I will keep sharing my thoughts with the hope that doing so will help someone out there.
[Reply]
Daniel, as we’re aware, smart, unorthodox thinkers can end-up world leaders who come-up with innovative ideas MANY people need and want. They can become the most successful and respected people in the world. Keep thinking and working on concepts like this – and the others you’ve mentioned to me – and you’ll be an ever larger leader of leaders before you know it (you’re already leading leaders here, you’ll just shine brighter and further…)
See you mate.
Cheers,
Nyomi
[Reply]
@ Paula – Yeah 13 is not so bad. Hope writing the obituary puts your life in Perspective. I find it a great way of sieving all the trash from my life. It makes me focus on stuff that really matters. Thanks again Paula for your support. Have a good day, “see” you tomorrow.
[Reply]
@ George – lol “Don’t be so morbid.” she is funny.
I watched the whole Steve Jobs video. Had seen it a few months ago but I just understood what he was saying in a different light. Thank you for sharing. If you are reading this and haven’t watched it check it out http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
[Reply]
@ Angeey – Missing you big. On second thoughts, I don’t want you to write an obituary – you should live forever!! Anyway thank you for your social media ideas and support.
[Reply]
@ Sublimity – Thank you for your comment and opinion.
I said “Writing your own private obituary is an out of the box way of thinking about your life and what you call success.It is an excellent way to put your life in perspective and I recommend that you try it.”
The reason I recommend that people write an obituary is to avoid being stuck on unimportant details of life. It is to help you nail what really counts in your life over the long term. An example I gave is family and friends. When people are chasing the mighty dollar, they may ignore friends and family. But when looked with the end in mind, many people would make different choices in life.
I am not saying that writing an obituary will make people succeed in life. What I mean is that it will help you choose where to spend your time, energy and focus. To change the meaning of what success is all about over the long term.
You say that you appraise your commitments continually. That is very commendable, more of us should do that.
On the issue of a private and public obituary, it is a personal choice. I find that by writing about my life as I see it helps me be honest with myself about who I really am. I set my own benchmarks, goals for improving myself. This include things like self control, self discipline, the kind of thoughts doing the rounds in my mind. As you say this impacts on how we relate with other people. But these are not issues that other people see. They only see the manifestation of the private me.
You got me thinking when you said that the immediate benefit of writing an obituary is public relations. I am not exactly sure what you meant but I interpret it to mean that writing an obituary will help you relate with people better. The “public” obituary is, when you think about it, a tool for managing how others perceive you a.k.a public relations.
Once again thank you for your input.
[Reply]
Number 13 is a great number…. I will try write mine since I have never thought about writing one……
This is new to me and the principles are still effective. Keep writing Dan…
[Reply]
Thanks for the interesting read. A couple of issues;
You advice on writing my obituary every year, why should I do it? Is this not new year resolutions – resuscitated every year? Is it not pessimistic optimism, why should I imagine my own death and start going through end of life planning? Is that the best approach? I doubt.
If you have read Stephen R. Covey’s 7th Habits of Highly Effective people – Habit 2 is what he calls “Begin with end in mind” – visualising your own death. I would agree to such a long term approach – one year is too short to make commitments (For your info I do make commitments on various aspects of my life and appraise continually). It takes longer than that, besides interplay of so many other external factors not within our control. It’s very easy to sit down and write things (this reminds me the annual rituals of business plan in organisations, budgeting and forecasting – which are done just because they are supposed to be done in most cases).
What, really, is the difference between what you call a private and public obituary? There are personal and interpersonal issues, but should they be separate? Can I respectfully deal with my friends if I do not respect my self? Socrates said we ought to “Know thyself” – and from that perspective deal with others – the same thing Covey calls private victory then public victory – it never means that they are not separate.
I do agree with most of the points you raise – but find it intellectually not convincing and very simplistic that just by annually writing obituaries we are going to change our lives. It takes more than that and its immediate impact may be public relations.
On money – yes that’s a right approach. I wish more people could listen to your voice.
Overall, a nice piece that stimulates thinking.
Keep writing.
[Reply]
I thnk il write myn….u made me thnkin about alot of thngz…
[Reply]
Hmmmm, I don’t think I will get to write my obituary, but I have a similar view or activity that I do every now and then. I take the time to reflect and see if I have any regrets, or if I knew I was going to die soon, if there is anything that I wish I had said or done. And as my girlfriend would say – Don’t be so morbid. But it does a lot of good for me, because I tend to soon find out that most things are meaningless, as King Solomon put it.
Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
and skip to about the 8th minute or alternative watch the whole thing. I agree with Steve Jobs on a number of things.
And here, http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html is a transcript of his speech (not word for word, but it is close enough).
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
[Reply]