What is Living Your Best Dash?
Years ago, I went to a funeral of a friend and the poem The Dash by Linda Ellis was read. The idea behind the poem was that the dash, the little symbol between your birth date and death date on your headstone, represents the time you spend on earth. The concept of the dash stuck with me, and now I want to inspire and encourage everyone to make the best of living your dash.
Have you seen the movie Groundhog Day? Basically, the main character (Bill Murray) gets stuck in time and relives the same day over and over. Sound familiar? I think we all experienced it to some degree during the Covid 19 pandemic (I still cannot believe we are living through a global pandemic!). With the countless stay at home orders and restrictions, we didn’t really have much choice in our days. But even pre pandemic, I think we all got stuck in auto pilot. Whether you are a student, single, married, working, stay at home mom, whatever the case may be, it’s easy to get in the habit of your life.
Now I can’t tell you how to live your best dash. Because what brings me joy (raising a monarch caterpillar to a butterfly, a trip to Mexico with my family, or sitting by the water by myself to name a few), is not going to be the same for you. But what I can encourage you to do is, first and foremost, appreciate that you are alive, and then figure out what makes you happy. Do the things now.
One thing I recently started was a bucket list. Usually bucket lists are started around milestones- when you graduate high school/post secondary, when the kids are grown, significant birthday, retirement… but why wait? Some items on my list are small, ice cream cone summer tour 2021, while others are big ticket, like a trip to Italy. If the pandemic has taught us anything is that tomorrow as we know it is not promised.
I am no expert, but I hope to remind and inspire you to live your best dash now.