This Daily Buzz Kill Has A Twist

There is an app called WeCroak whose mission is to help you ‘find happiness by contemplating your mortality’.  Five times a day at random times (just like death),  the app will send you a message that says “Don’t forget, you’re going to die…”  and then lets you open a quote  about mortality for contemplation. 

You might be saying – Wow! That’s morbid. No, thank you!  And we’d get it.  But the purpose of the messages are to remind us about how vulnerable we really are at any given moment.  The hope is that it serves as a wake-up call encouraging us to take time to pause and reflect, focus on what’s important, discard what isn’t, and increase the quality of our interactions with people or everyday things, when quantity so often pulls us out of the present, disconnecting us from our surroundings. 

This kind of app, or any reminder of your choosing has enormous potential as a daily exercise.  It could be a way to constantly de-clutter your mind to better inhabit your body.   

What if you used it to…

•  Find your breath and focus on it for one minute with each reminder – how would that change even the next phone call? 
•  Savor and enjoy that cup of coffee just a little more than you usually do
•  Study the clouds or trees for one minute and rediscover how majestic and awesome they really are
•  Say a mantra or positive statement that clears away toxic stress and rebalances your day
•  Recite a prayer or poem that centers you

Regardless of whether you call it prayer, mindfulness, or meditation, or do something that more actively reaches others, what activity would help you reset the moment and reconnect with your highest and best self?  Build your own list and make it a part of a daily reminder with or without an app.

Here are a couple of quotes that struck me…

The earth would die if the sun stopped kissing her – Hafiz

What is to give light must endure burning – Viktor Frankl

Many of us know or have heard of people who have truly confronted their mortality by surviving horrible ordeals and developed a renewed outlook on life, even thanking their disease for bringing them home to themselves and their loved ones.  Imagine if we took a lesson from them to stop sweating the small stuff because life is short. 

May you enter this New Year with a fresh perspective and a light spirit, counting your blessings long before your losses, and with a willing readiness to freely share the gifts you’ve been given.