What Will Matter
Character Counts
November 09, 2005
What Will Matter
Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will fade away;
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on in the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be immaterial.
So What Will Matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you have built;
Not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage and sacrifice
That enriched, empowered, and encouraged others to emulate your example
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel
A lasting loss when you're gone
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who knew you and loved
you .
Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstances but of choices.
Choice to live a life that matters.
-Anonymous
From Character Counts website
