If You Don’t Have 1000 People at Your Funeral, Have You Failed at Life?

I’ve done a lot of people-pleasing in my life.

I’ve done it enough, that as an adult meat case, I don’t realize that I’m doing it.

Most of the time, we exist so deeply in particular parts of our story, that we don’t see the detrimental effect they have on our self-worth and boundaries.

But, let’s move on…

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Why does the heart suffer so much?

It’s not an easy question to answer. And it’s most likely different for you than it is for me.

My best answer thus far is that I’ve lived my life trying to be the healing for everyone else, but never myself. I starved myself of care and self-appreciation and self-driven power.

Until recently.

But in the realization of this, I had to find a way to keep myself from blaming the world and resenting it. I had to find a way to love people and also love myself.

I knew that being of service to others still needed to be part of my mission and my purpose.

But how could I not feel used, yet still show up?

Hence, the following:

The greatest thing my mother ever taught me, something that lies in the depths of my subconscious character, is that all people are good at the center.

Only, people become poisoned. They become layered by what the world has done to them in adolescence, and what they carry on thinking it’s doing to them in adulthood.

They’ve been beaten by others, both emotionally and physically, and they get starved of love and attention. Enough so that they either have no idea how to love, or they turn to evil means of retaliation for not receiving it.

Their mission becomes a blanketed “f*ck you” to the world. All because their blossoming character was abused, chained down, and all but destroyed.

But as much as people argue about stupid, surface-level, meaningless things today, most people aren’t evil. We’re all just looking for love and acceptance and validity.

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We all have energy to expel.

The question is, is it misguided? Is it valuable? Is it of service? Does it build empires and ideas and progress, or does it destroy them?

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If you think that wanting 1000 people at my funeral is childish, selfish, and narcissistic, even to think about…

You’d be right.

It is.

And I don’t care what you think.

I don’t dream of it because I think it will happen. I don’t expect to look down from a hypothetical religious heaven and find myself counting…996, 997, 998…

“WHO DIDN’T ANSWER THE RESERVATION? Who was too busy to come? I even said there would be delicious red velvet cake! I bet it was Carl and Becca…”

I don’t believe there is any sort of consciousness after death. So, it won’t matter who’s at my funeral.

So, it’s not about what happens after my death, but what happens before it. It’s about what that desire does for me now until the die my heart makes its last beat.

(Unless I last long enough to become a cyborg.)

What it does do:

It drives me to remember that love comes first(that doesn’t mean I share it freely).
It reminds me that passion and mission and being valuable to the world is the priority. And the only thing that dissolves insanity and annihilation.
It reminds me that I only have a finite time to make whatever impact I want.
It reminds me that the same finite time gives me one chance to be selfish enough to do what I love with my life.
It reminds me that belief and effort and accomplishment can help me see the world in its greatness, not in its devilry.
It reminds me that I want to be good for as many people as I can…and that I can die thinking that I spread love and gave whatever wisdom I had, whether there are 1000 people at my funeral or 13.

I don’t truly have expectations of my funeral. But setting a goal with it maintains how I see life and forces me to do better. Even when I think humans are being horrible.

I won’t be derailed by bad behavior, because it reminds me to look behind the behavior…

…and into the shadows.

And most often, there lies the little boy or girl who seeks love and acceptance.

It’s little things like this, the optimistic and compassionate mind, that I think makes us good, not necessarily our efforts to become “the best”.

Why?

Because there could be a Hitler 2.0 and technically he’d be “the best”, but does that mean he would be doing the best things for the global community and all people?

If you say yes, you can leave…

So, is it okay to desire and expect 1000 people to watch me be buried six feet under?

(Actually, I want to be burned after death…I’m afraid of waking up in a box.)

For sure.

It’s just for me. And it works.

It’s not like I’m sending invitations…

But if you want to RSVP, send me a discreet email with “Waiting for you to Die” in the title.

So,

Do whatever it takes for you to maintain the mindset and purpose you think you’re here for.

Make a stupid outlandish goal. Go to the edges of your own expectations.

Truth and Love reader.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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