Envision your eulogy instead of your obituary — How to craft the best version of yourself
For clarity’s sake, a eulogy as per Wikipedia, is a speech or writing in praise of a person or persons or things, especially one who recently died or retired or as a term of endearment.
As per Google, an obituary is a notice of a death, especially in a newspaper, typically including a brief biography of the deceased person.
Also, for attribution’s sake, I got the idea of writing a eulogy instead of an obituary from some random podcast (feel free to attribute it to yourself!). However grim the fundamental of this exercise is; I thought it was brilliant when I tried it.
Afterall, each moment we are living, we are also dying. And how we want to be remembered can guide our life path going forward.
An obituary will state facts, or boring details. But it can also bring to your attention, details about yourself that you want to change or spice up.
For example, I am a 36-year old accountant with a deep hatred for cats, born on an island, lived in Europe. Those are little pieces of information about me, totally drab and lacking soul. Let’s add some life to it.
A eulogy is usually a tribute written for you (hopefully) by a loved one. Right now, we are writing one together. A living eulogy that is going to help us peel our core values and uncover our desires.
It is not only what you want to be known as but also what you truly want deep down. Feel free to ask close friends for feedback; on how they see you and what you bring to the table. Or you also do this entirely on your own.
I know, a common feedback I will get from my friend is full of beans. Calm, cool, collected, fun. All good things. Probably scatter-brained, daydreamer, go-getter, maybe short-tempered. This one is a living and downright honest eulogy. Remember we are not dead yet, so it does not need to be a sugar-coated post-humous tribute either.
I, ShevK, fun person, full of beans, always livened a party or making plans and taking people out of their comfort zone. Always inspiring people to be their best self by walking her talk and sometimes falling flat on her face. Huge fan of personal development and incremental growth, learning more day by day and teaching people along the way. Humanitarian having moved the needle in helping the community at large and showing empathy and enforcing cohesion among diverse groups. Full of love and energy, ready to jump in to help in any last-minute crisis. Great cook with an unrivalled passion for food.
It is Saturday night, I turned off all distractions, including laptop notifications. I put on some music and relaxed for a good hour, before setting myself in the zone and writing the paragraph above. Totally heartful. Except a spelling and grammar check that I will perform before publishing, that was coming from my core. No overthinking, with a part of my logical brain tuned out.
Why is the absence of logic important? In my humble opinion, the moment we start involving rational thoughts in this practice, there is an element of thinking about people and society at large that will mess it up.
The writing has to be raw, untarnished by what you are expected to be and rather who you want to be. Part of the paragraph I wrote above I am already doing and part I intend to do. But did I know 100% before writing this that this is what I want to be remembered for? Absolutely not.
Go on. Write yours. The key is to be fully present and free from distractions. Outside disturbances will spoil the process. Be you and write for yourself in the third person. You can thank yourself later.
