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Life Review - VIP Audio

Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to our next lesson set. Now, this month I have kind of heavy serious topic. Don’t be afraid. It’s nothing to worry about, but I do want you to think deeply this month. It’s a little bit more of a deep topic I guess is how I might describe it.

So this is called ‘Life Review’ and it’s an exercise or a thought experiment that you may have read about before. Maybe you’ve done it before, but I want you to do it again.

What we’re gonna do is we gonna kind of think about like our whole life, kind of try to get the big picture. So the whole point this month is really about perspective. You know that phrase ‘point of view’ like our point-of-view stories? ‘Point of view’ just means, literally, where you’re looking at something from. So let’s say I have a bug, like a little ant or something. If it’s down on the ground and I’m standing above it my point of view is above it. I’m looking down onto it from maybe a little bit of a large distance. That’s one point of view.

Now, I could look at that same ant, the same bug, I could be standing on top of a ladder and looking down at it and I’ll see it differently. Or, I could stand on top of a big hill and maybe I might need some telescope or binoculars and look way down on it. Or, I could get on knees or I could pick it up and I could look at it like straight on and very, very close. Or, I could get a microscope and I could look at it really, really, really close. So it’s the same object, an ant or a bug, but it’s a different point of view. I’m changing the point from which I’m observing it or looking at it.

So that’s all point of view means and so that’s all grammar is really. When we tell a story or something we’re just changing the point of view that we’re looking at the event from or that we’re describing it from. So let’s say something happens. Let’s say an apple falls from a tree. If we say the apple fell from the tree, well we’re looking at it from a future point of view, right? We’re looking back to the past. We’re describing it from now as a past event—the apple fell.

Or, if we’re right there now and I’ve got a microphone I’d say and the apple is falling now. It’s happening right as I’m watching it, right as I’m describing it. It’s a different point of view. The same thing is happening, an apple falling from a tree. Then if I, I don’t know, somehow have a time machine or I’m imagining or I’m looking at it and I can see it’s kind of shaking ah, that apple will fall. That apple is gonna fall. It’s going to fall. It’s just a different time point of view.

It’s the same when we’re describing an event. If I describe, I ran to the store or if someone else is describing me AJ ran to the store, he ran to the store, it’s just changing again. Instead of I’m describing it from my own eyes, someone from the outside is describing the same thing happening. That’s really what most grammar is and so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna kind of look at our lives in this way.

See, most of the time we have a certain point of view of our life, which is kind of right now. We maybe look at today and sometimes we maybe look at our life in terms of like one year, last year to next year. Well, we have a certain timeframe that we normally think about our life. With some people it’s different. Some people live right now in this moment so they’re always just focused right now.

I guess if you were perfectly doing that you’d be some kind of monk or something, enlightened, because you’d always be here now all the time aware of everything, which would be great. Most of us don’t do that, but then some of us are more kind of shortterm thinkers. Some of us like to look more to the future. I’m more of a future type of person. I’m always thinking about what’s next, what’s next. What do I want to do next?

My general point of view is looking forward and then other people are more what we call nostalgic. ‘Nostalgic’ just means that you kind of have a point of view where you enjoy more looking to the past and appreciating the past. So that’s another kind of point of view.

So this month in this kind of life review, kind of like that ant, we’re gonna try to imagine we’re gonna pull way back and look at our entire life. So we’re gonna try to look at many, many years, like decades. A ‘decade’ is 10 years, so we’re gonna look at decades of life. We’re going to imagine, in fact, that we’re at the end of our life already.

Hopefully, we live like a really long time. We live to be 100 years old or something and then we’re gonna imagine ourselves already there at the very end. We’re 100 years old and that we’re laying on a bed and we’re about to die. Then we’re gonna imagine we’re at that point and then we’re looking back on everything.

This is actually an activity you participate in, so what I want you to do either right now this time or maybe the second time you listen to this audio or whatever you want to do, I want you to sit down in a quiet place alone and close the door. Maybe even turn of the lights or just close your eyes or whatever and I want you kind of to imagine this. Imagine you’re time traveling a little bit.

So the first thing I want you to do is sit down or lay down and just close your eyes, maybe turn the lights down a little bit and then I want you to imagine. Imagine going forward into the future and imagine yourself at the end of your life, however old that will be for you. So maybe you’re 100 years old, let’s be optimistic. Let’s say you’re 100 years old and you’re on your death bed or if you want to be more optimistic be 200. I don’t care, just imagine you’re there and you’re really old and you’re kind of laying in a bed.

So this is your death scene. Don’t get too sad about it because hopefully you’ve had a great life. I want you to imagine you’re there and you’re looking back. The first step of this is you’re there and you’re kind of laying in that bed and you’re imaging your whole life. You’re reviewing your entire life from your childhood, which has already happened even now and then you know into your young adulthood and then as you got older and into middle age and then into your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s all the way up to the end when you’re laying there. Just take a moment and think about that.

Think about first the life you have already lived to whatever your age is now. I want you to sort of just review it. So you can pause this if you need to and just think about the major things that have happened. What are the most memorable things in your life good and bad, small or big? Sometimes the small things are the things that actually we remember. Then I want you to imagine from this point now in your life all the way to that end point at 100 years old or whatever and what you hope will happen, the kind of things you hope will occur in the rest of your life, so kind of think about that for a while and then I want you to ask some questions.

Question number one is what is most important? So you’re in that moment. You’re laying there and you’re thinking about your whole life. It’s all over, what’s most important? Really imagine at that moment right before the end, what do you think will be most important to you. At that moment do you think you’re going to say oh, that was great? Maybe it’s more than one thing, but what’s most important. Not just great like some peak experience, but what is most important, the most meaningful to you. What do you think it will be at the end when you look back at everything? You know all the accomplishments, all the jobs, all the money, all the relationships, all the travel, all the learning, all the ups, all the downs, all of it, what do you think will be most important, most meaningful to you. That’s question one.

What I want you to do is you can listen to this a few times, but at some point pause and actually write it down. Think about it and imagine you’re in that moment. It’s really important that you imagine it. If you just sit there normally and you just try to write this down it’s a different kind of emotional state, a different kind of feeling. It’s much better if you can turn the lights down and really put yourself as much as you can into that position of the end of your life. You’re dying. You’re looking back. What is it that’s most important? What was most important in your life? Write it down. What are the best memories, the ones you’ve already had and the ones you hope to create.

The next thing is who was most important, right? So really imagine that. In fact, you could even imagine you’re at your death bed. Who would you want to be standing around you as you’re dying? You can imagine that even people older than you can live longer than you, whatever. So if you hope your parents are there even though they’re still alive now that’s great, put them there. Or, maybe they’re dead, but you want to picture them. Their spirit is there, that’s fine too. The key question is who would you want there with you at the end? Who are the most important people in your life? Again, go ahead and pause and write down those names and then, finally, think about what you would want to say to each of these people at the end.

So two things, number one, what would you want to say to them individually. You know why are they special? Why are they important to you? Imagine going down that list and write it down again. Pause this and write down you know mom and then write down what you would want to say to you know your wife, your husband, your child, friends, whatever.

The second thing is I would like you to think about what you would want to share with them. What wisdom? What lessons do you hope you can share to them? What do you hope you can tell them about the meaning of your life or what you did or what you accomplished or what you learned. So think about that question also and then write down the answer. Maybe you don’t know now, but what you hope to know or hope to learn or hope to be at the end.

So, obviously, a pretty serious question, pretty serious activity, but think about it deeply and get yourself into that mindset of really it’s the end and imagine what it would be like emotionally and then write your answers, then think about your answers. Then as the final step, which we’ll talk about more in the commentary, this is the key and I’m sure you know this is the key, I want you to compare your life now to your answers.

We’ll talk about that more in the commentary, but the important part right now is to actually go through this activity. So now what I want you to do is maybe rewind this, go back to the beginning, turn the lights off, close your eyes, pause when you need to and really get yourself into that moment and then write those answers.

Okay, that’s all. See you in the commentary and we’ll talk more about it. See you soon, bye.