Questions to Ask at the End of Your Life

“I wish I had worked harder.”  Said no one ever on his or her deathbed.

Isn’t it ironic how there seems to be a consensus on how not to live one’s life, and yet; very few of us really live our lives according to that wisdom. It is as if we have two identities: one, which revolves around playing the game, chasing the dream, helping corporations and governments move capital around like piles of sand from one place to the other, paying taxes, chasing passions, using the right apps, wearing the right clothes, and rooting for the right team. And then, there is the other identity, which wryly observes all of this madness and is deeply fulfilled instead by love, connections, service, spirituality, and beauty. Eckhart Tolle explains these two identities clearly in his book “The Power of Now.” The first identity, he says, is the ego, and is created from all of the mental thinking that we do when we focus our attention on the past and on the future. The second identity is our true Being, the individuated consciousness that is connected to everything else, to “all that there is,” which we find when we focus on the present.

So it got me thinking about what questions I would ask at the end of my life, as I look back and assess how well I did this time around. I came up with a few:

• How well did I learn to love, forgive, and be compassionate?
• How much of a positive impact did I make on other living entities?
• How well did I learn the life lessons that I was supposed to, in order to evolve my consciousness?
• How well did I attain happiness?
• How well did I eradicate fear from my driving forces?

Questions I would not ask:

• Did I work hard enough?
• Was I punctual?
• Did I follow the rules?

Still, I know that I am expending more energy following the ego’s plan, but it is ever so slowly shifting.

I would love to hear what questions others would ask and not ask.