105 LIVE A LIFE THAT MATTERS Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end! There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days! All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else! Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance! It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed! Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear! So too your hopes, ambitions, plans and ‘to do’ lists will expire! The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away! At the end, it will not matter where you came from, or on which side of the tracks you lived! It will not matter if you were brilliant or beautiful! Even your gender and skin colour will be irrelevant! So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured? What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave! What will matter is not your success, but your significance! What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught! What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example! What will matter is not your competence but your character! What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone! What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you! What will matter is not how long you will be remembered, but by whom and for what! Living a life that matters does not happen by accident! It is not a matter of circumstance, but of choice! Choose to live a life that matters! Author unknown