Live with Passion Gallery Canvas Print

Faced with only having six months left to live, we imagine going out in a breathtaking grand finale of epic proportions. That’s how we’d like things to go. That’s how it works in the movies.

But not so much in real life.

In real life, a heart attack gets you before you even knew what hit you. In real life, by the time you get the real “you’ve got six months left to live” speech, you’re too weak and sick to muster much more than getting down the hall to the bathroom. In real life, you wake up one day when you’re ninety and wonder where the hell the time went.

But rather than focus on making sure my last days resemble a nighttime Disney World extravaganza, I’m more interested in focusing on what my regular days look like. Am I happy to get out of bed, excited about what the day holds? Does my work make a difference in the world? Does it make a difference to me? Do I get to spend a little of each day with the people I love, even if it’s just a simple meal together, or a walk around the neighborhood, or a dance party in my living room? Did I make time for a short prayer with my God, a slice of a good book, or a meaningful conversation with my wife?

The best way to die with no regrets — be it six months or sixty years from now — is to make sure that most of your days are infused with those simple measures of happiness and fulfillment. By my estimation, it’s better to create a life that’s filled with days that look like that than to hope for a brilliant grand finale that makes up for the thousands of days spent in quiet desperation, toiling in a job you didn’t like, spending time with people you didn’t care about, and caring about things that didn’t matter.

Make sure you’re intentionally creating a life that is consistently breathtaking, even if in small ways. Because jumping out of a plane or scaling Mount Everest during your last days won’t make up for a lifetime of settling.

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product details

This colorful artwork by Jason Kotecki comes in a variety of sizes.

16"x20" and 24"x30" Gallery Canvas. The fade-resistant canvas print is sure to make a statement in any space. It's a durable, satin-finished canvas hand-stretched on locally sourced wood frames. It features archival inks, black edges, and comes ready to hang.