So … we all die anyway, right? 3 things I’ve learnt from living opposite Europe’s largest graveyard
So I live right opposite the biggest graveyard in the whole of Europe … no joke, this place is massive …. you can get horribly lost in there (believe it from a person who knows **Shuudder**) but it’s wonderfully spooky and beautiful.
On a wintery Vienna morning it’s actually incredibly peaceful (it’s about 2 kilometres from the airport and the train tracks are right over my left shoulder, so when I say peaceful, I mean it kinda loosely) and a person can contemplate what the hell is going on in their lives …
Things I have learned from living near a huge graveyard:
1: You are never too old to begin living how you want to live. Don’t wait until you are nearly dead … Just freakin’ well do it … whatever it is! Just start something … it doesn’t need to be perfect, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look exactly how you planned it (stop being so anal, man!), just go with the flow … it will work itself out! The more you practice, the better you get … that’s a [dead] cert (oh, wow … sorry). You can start ballroom dancing at 86 if you can still move your limbs and you want to … and if you want to start painting, just bloody well do it. Go out and buy yourself a cheap set of paints and start doodling … it doesn’t need to be a Van Gogh, it just needs to be a whole lot of YOU, you amazing beast!
2: Death comes to us all. Obvious right? Uh, noooo … we tend to think we are never-ending (like that story with the luck dragon, you know the one … and if you don’t, what the hell were you doing with your childhood? No, don’t answer that … Falkor is probably creepier … in an awesome sort of way), we think that we have got endless time and so we live in perpetual procrastination, putting stupid things first and important things second … ‘I’ll go and see the folks tomorrow, I’ve got to do the washing up (LOL, WTF!) … I don’t have time for you today, I have a tonne of paperwork to do … when I’ve finished this report, I’ll play with the kids’ … etc, etc, it goes on, in different forms. I have a question for you … if you were to die tomorrow, would you be happy with the way you treated people (that includes yourself, willy-brain), did you tell the people you care about (again, yourself included) that you actually care about them, did you spend your time (which is about the most valuable currency in our tiny little universe) giving out love? Or, what if a loved one died tomorrow … same questions apply. Hey, don’t worry if the answer is a resounding NOOOOOO … no one’s perfect and I doubt even the Dalai Lama is radiating 100% love and doing what the hell he wants 24/7 … I’m just asking you to think about the fact that you will die (ok, that sounds like a threat … I promise I’m not waiting in your garden with a butchers knife ready to gouge out your heart whilst I laugh maniacally … or am I? … jk jk, relax), and so will everyone else, so just give it the once over in the old brain box before you say you are too busy for your kids, Mum, Granny, dog ….. (insert loved person here).
3: Don’t be afraid of death. You probably aren’t gonna die tomorrow but if you do … I swear, I had nothing to do with it. No bad Ju-Ju from me, lovelies! However, I believe that death is not something we should be afraid of. I don’t believe that we go to heaven or hell and I don’t believe in God in any kind of ‘big man in the sky’ sense … I believe that on the day of our death, we will be shown how wonderful we are in a totally non-judgemental, completely loving way. All of our failings and errors (no matter how big) will be shown and we will enter into a state of complete and total understanding. We will enter back into the great cosmos and become one with everything that is … Anita Moorjani writes about her near death experience in her book Dying to be Me (which I highly recommend reading, by the way), a book that spoke to my soul and has had a profound effect on the way in which I view death.
So I guess the message I’m trying to send today is that we all die eventually and some sooner than others so lets get busy and start showing people that we love them and doing things that make us happy so that we can spread happiness by being happy … too many happy’s but jeepers I just want everyone to be HAPPY!
You don’t need to live opposite a massive graveyard to start something exciting do you?
P.s – I meant that part about including yourself in the love too, y’know!
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