At the risk of sounding macabre… every once in a while I do a check to see if I have any outstanding business that needs attending. What I do is to ask myself – if I were to die tonight was there anyone I needed to talk with, anything I needed to finish or make provision for? There are multiple reasons for doing this, not the least of which is to not have excess baggage hanging around. Because, let’s face it, we really never forget these ‘things’.
Doing a check on our personal ‘To Do’ items is important so we don’t have a long list of unfinished items. And the ‘to do’ aren’t just the issues of forgiving – yourself, others, seeking and/or giving forgiveness – it’s also those words and actions of encouragement, of love, of support. I would suggest that is this latter category that gets the most short shrift.
Most of the encouragement/love/support items are, in our minds, ‘givens’. But they’re not. And even if others did perceive them as a given, we still need to provide occasional reinforcement of our attitudes and beliefs. It’s important to let others know that we appreciate them and what they are and do for us. When was the last time you told your significant other(s) that you do love and appreciate them? If you have children, when was the last time you told them that you were proud of them and who they are becoming, not just what they do?
It isn’t just the activities of others than need complementing, it’s the more intangible things that are truly crucial to growth that need acknowledging. If we spent as much time on reinforcing the good in others rather than pointing out the deficiencies – how would that person react? Actually we have no idea the power of a word of support can have.
We all have unfinished items in our lives. What we need to do is to be more conscious of them and act on what we are aware of more often. We need to be proactive in finishing our unfinished business.
