Prompt A: Last Words

My last words. I don't know quite where to start. I have to say I haven't lived long enough to feel like I have a lot of wisdom, so my final words will have to be based on the short 25 years I have lived. If I have learned one thing about happiness in my life, it is to focus on what REALLY matters.
What makes a life successful? I think success is different to everyone. A good friend of mine wrote a blog post some time ago about how she hopes someday she can make more of herself than she is today. Her idea of success was having plenty of money to travel and see the world and have the nice things she dreams of. I was saddened by that measure of success. While I see the merit in having lofty goals, I don't think without money and travel that someone's life is a failure. I remember commenting on her blog that if I never have any more money than I do today, but I have a loving family and relationship with my family, and become a better person every day, I will consider my life a success.
While that sounds really cheesy, I truly feel that way. I don't know if I will ever have the money to travel to Ireland and play golf as my husband and I would like to. But if I really think about it, will it change my life much? Not really. Will it make me a better person? Beyond exposure to another culture, probably not. What will change my life is the relationships I have with others. The way I treat other people. The relationship I have with my husband. The sacrafice of being a mother if I am given that opportunity. Those things will change my life on a daily basis. Those things are the important things to me.
Today on my lunch break I was thinking about life in general. I concluded that life is good. My husband and I are blessed regularly to have the money we need to survive and then some. We have a wonderful marriage, a nice home, good jobs, and a lot of extras. We have our ups and downs. There are some live that seem better than ours, and some lives that seem worse. I have heard once that if we all hung out trials out on a clothes like, you would pick yours and I would pick mine. I usually would pick mine over those of people around me. I know how to handle mine. I am grateful every day for the blessings of being able to handle them.
I am not an expert at life, and I don't believe I will ever be. Realizing the abundance, the good things, and the blessings in life seem to be the key to happines for me. Will I have a successful life? Who knows, I guess I will wait and see.

42 min