Learning to Live Before We Die

An essay on living with grace, choosing compassion, and finding meaning in imperfection

Every story starts with a question.
A deep dive into the gnawing, the aching, the simple life that still begs me to see clearer, to wake up. Confusion blossoms like springtime buds, reigniting the curious spark of becoming.

In the end, it’s who you are that matters. Not who you desired or wished to be. In your final breath, there is no hiding from the truth of integrity.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about death—not in the sense of awaiting it, but rather living as if I were already dying.
Cue: Live Like You Were Dying x Tim McGraw
The question keeps circling back: If I died today, would I be happy with what I left behind? With who I am?

There’s a difference between being a person and being a good person.
The kind of person who thinks too much about how they show up for others. Who replays moments, noticing what they missed, calculating ways to do better next time.
I’m not saying being a good person means being an overthinker. I’m saying it takes energy—real, intentional giving. Even when you fill your own cup first.

Genuine people notice things. The way flower vines wrap around a fence, blooming bright from spring until fall. The quiet wonder in small, ordinary beauty that many never pause to see. They notice the woman trying her best to soothe her child while others whisper about the noise. They wonder: How much sleep did she get last night? How many kids is she caring for? Does she work, too? Maybe she’s just having a hard day.

Maybe I over-sympathize. I honestly don’t know what that says about me. I’m not judging anyone—I’m just trying to understand how the things that make life so beautifully human can be so easily dismissed.
We’ve become so self-protective that we shut out genuine connection. And when no one’s open to receiving, connection dwindles. Hostility takes its place, breeding fear and doubt. Neighbors hide away instead of helping. Even I catch myself retreating—but I get it. We all have our own shit.

Still, there’s a difference.
It’s in how you choose to care.

Caring, loving, showing up—it isn’t easy. Life gets heavy. But choosing to act with love in all that you do, to offer grace and patience even through anger or pain, that’s compassion. That’s integrity. Being a good person doesn’t mean perfection. It means staying open when the world tells you to close. It means loving anyway.

The easier choice is bitterness, to see the world with one eye open, shielded and small. But nothing worth having ever came easy.

And if it seems that it has for some—trust me, it hasn’t.
We all have our own shit.

The greater the fear, the more powerful the transformation.

The deeper I come to know myself, the more the world bends and the more things change. With each layer of truth, reality reveals itself as something far beyond what I can currently perceive.

Words come to me like a story, filling in the gaps of who I am.

I have began to once again see the beauty that is all around: in the greenery of life, in the simple process of death and rebirth, in the changing seasons and the call of nature. In the rain and sunshine that fuel the crops and replenish the cycle of life again and again.

There is beauty in aging. In the significance of scars and the stories they hold. Your flesh is a canvas, a living record of a life experienced. The markings tell stories of your journey: the hardships, the windfalls, the breakthroughs, the breakdowns. Every birthmark, slanted smile, and freckle is uniquely yours—a testament to a story still unfolding, an odyssey far beyond what we yet understand of the soul.

And when we finally reach the end of the road, the question remains:
Have we truly lived?
Have we loved?
Have we given more than we have taken?

Will you be happy with who you were when it’s all said and done?

There is a difference between being a person—and being a good person.
But, we all have our own shit.