In my first book, The Accidental Creative, I recounted ameeting in which a friend asked a strange and unexpected question: “What do youthink is the most valuable land in the world?”
Several people threw out guesses, such as Manhattan, the oilfields of the Middle East, and the gold mines of South Africa, before ourfriend indicated that we were way off track. He paused for a moment, and said,”You’re all wrong. The most valuable land in the world is the graveyard. In thegraveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, never-launched businesses,unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things that people thought,’I’ll get around to that tomorrow.’ One day, however, their tomorrows ran out.”
That day I went back to my office and I wrote down two wordsin my notebook and on the wall of my office that have been my primary operatingethic for the last several years: Die Empty. I want to know that if I lay myhead down tonight and don’t wake up tomorrow, I have emptied myself of whatevercreativity is lingering inside, with minimal regrets about how I spent myfocus, time, and energy. This doesn’t happen by accident; it takes intentionaland sustained effort. But I can say with confidence from my own experience andthe experiences of others I’ve worked with that the effort is well worth it.
You’ve probably heard “No one ever lay on their deathbedwishing for another day of work.” I think this saying is wrong, and perhaps alittle dangerous because of what it implies. First, I believe a great manypeople do regret not having treated their life with more purpose, and wouldgive anything to have one more chance to approach it with the kind of intentionand conviction that imminent death makes palpable. They know that theyconsistently ignored small twinges of intuition, inspiration, and insight. Theyrecall how they cowered away “from risk in favor of comfort. They spent theirdays regretting their past decisions rather than taking aggressive steps toredirect their life in a more hopeful direction.
Todd Henry
Die Empty