I’m here today to talk about my opinions on death, life and living. One will always follow the other, just as the other will always follow the first. Death cannot occur without life, just as life cannot occur without death; and to be living can only occur with them both.                                                                   

In the same way we don’t think about how to keep our heart pumping, just like we don’t think about how our body inhales and exhales without us having to consciously think about it. We are living. If we were to relate this to birth and death, it also happens without us having to think about it. Our Self, Soul, or Inner Being is a known constant that is present from the moment of conception till death. Or is it? We need to remember that our Soul does not need to think about how to pump our heart, or how to breathe; our Soul is a life force inside that makes each and every one of us who we are. For those that believe in reincarnation, we are a singular soul that travels through many lives and on many journeys. Living people spend so much of their time wondering what will happen after death, but what if our Soul never actually dies? We would not have to endure everlasting non existence, for we will already be on our journey to somewhere new. Whether this is in an Earthly form or not, our soul is being carried to our next destination where we are to learn a new lesson; and so this pattern continues to reoccur. Life, Death, Life, Death. But this is all apart of living.

Each and every one of us at some point in our lives have had the thought, what would happen if I died? No doubt everyone in this room has known somebody to have died and had the passing thought as to where this person is now. Even though they may be buried in the ground, or scattered in a unique place to remind us of them, we can no longer interact with them as if they were standing right next to us. Throughout our lives we will feel this brunt force of emotion towards to loss that we had. Empathy is a choice, we don’t have to feel it if we don’t want to, therefore it is a vulnerable choice. For in order to connect with somebody’s sadness, we have to delve somewhere deep in ourselves that knows that feeling.

I have only lost 3 people in my life. My great grandfather, whose memory now sits at the tip of my tongue, slipping away into the abyss of unknown. My great uncle, a man who held so much love in his heart and continued to support and share his wisdom with me in his final moments. He passed away in his sleep only an hour after I had been holding his hand. He was cold already and slipping in and out of this world into somewhere we cannot yet comprehend. Nobody can quite describe how devastating it is to watch a person you love so dearly drift away from you, and so I won’t even try. The third person was one of my best friends, most of you know him. He was extraordinary, and definitely not ordinary.

I want you all to think about what it would be like to go to sleep and never wake up.

If you were left to think about this long enough I believe you would find yourself wondering, what would it be like to wake up after never going to sleep. This represents your birth. We as normal functioning human beings cannot remember life before life (normally), so would it be fair to say we cannot remember life after death? This would all depend on your perspective of life and death and your spiritual beliefs.Some of you may believe there is endless nothing, maybe comparing it to a state of deep sleep. Others may believe in God, that there is somebody out there looking over us and our families and that his son sacrificed himself for our earthly sins. Then there are some of you who may have the same belief as me. That we are more than just bones, muscle, flesh. We are an entity that has been put here to live an Earthly life, to make the most of the senses that have been given to us. As a society we are not using our senses to their full capacity, it’s almost as if we use the bare minimum just to get along with our daily lives. We waste the beautiful opportunity of life on mediocre living. We settle for such ordinary lives, when we can strive for extraordinary. The senses are what connects us to the World around us, without them we wouldn’t be able to experience the cold snow that trickles down our back when we crash on the ski field. We wouldn’t be able to smell the fresh air that runs up through our nostrils, nor would we be able to hear the sound of stones crunching together when we walk along the lakeside; the metallic taste of blood in our mouths when we accidentally bite our cheek. Without sight we wouldn’t be able to see all the beauty this World has to offer us.

No matter where you are beauty can always be found. Open your eyes, take a deep breath, let it out, and become apart of the moment, connect yourself with the World, and the people around you. Live; knowing that one day you will die and that nobody truly knows what will happen after that. You don’t want to waste opportunities, we have reached an age where there are so many of them and we need to follow our hearts, not just our heads. Make a stupid decision. Do it again if you have to. Don’t regret it, learn from it. Let your actions comb you into the person you want to be. Take the opportunities that are placed before you and don’t become lazy expecting everything to just ‘work out’, because this is the real World, we aren’t kids for much longer.

I want you all to now  imagine yourself as a power station.  This power station doesn’t have energy, but it creates energy. In order for energy to be present we must create it ourselves, we need to be motivated to create the results that we want. Magic is not needed to change the World, we don’t have to run on blind faith praying that everything will work out, for already we carry the power we need inside ourselves. All we have to do is trust in ourselves, work for the results that we want, and live a happy life that fulfills us to the very core.

I’ve talked to you about death, but I hope that is not what you have concentrated on. For I want you all to understand the importance of life. The importance of how our heart will continue to pump throughout our lives until it reaches its last beat. The importance of how our body knows the mechanics of breathing without us having to consciously think about it. There is no need to be worrying about death, for it is just apart of living, distracting us from the here and now.  It is something is to accept and the reason we need to be living each and every day we have to the fullest.

Leave footprints of love and kindness wherever you go, live a life less ordinary and make your Earthly experience extraordinary. Thank you.