When I leave

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones.”

I’m about to tell you a story.

It’s a terribly sad story but it changed the way I thought about things after I heard it.

I had a friend in high school who had divorced parents. He would go out to spend the weekend with his dad in a small town outside of where we lived. One weekend when he went out to see his dad, they got in a huge fight. Both sides were extremely upset at each other, so my friend left and his dad went to sleep.

When my friend came back in the morning and found that his dad had killed himself. He wasn’t able to say sorry. He wasn’t able to make it up. He wasn’t about to change anything. That’s how he went out.

After that, I never really saw this friend. It was an extremely tragic moment in his life. I have never experienced something so tragic but that story made me realize one thing:

I NEED TO TREAT PEOPLE LIKE IT’S MY LAST TIME SEEING THEM.

What terrifies me more than anything is the idea that I won’t be remembered how I wish to be remembered. It scares me to think that I might leave someone with a bad taste in their mouth.

In every single relationship, I ask myself the question:

“Would I be happy how I left things if I passed tomorrow?”

Some people may think this is a morbid thought, but it encourages me to really think about the way I treat people. This fear of leaving on a bad note encourages me to have the tough conversations when I don’t want to. It encourages me to tell the truth. It encourages me to say what I’m actually thinking.

I don’t want to look back and regret not saying enough.

Whenever you leave anything for the last time, ask yourself this question:

WILL YOU BE HAPPY HOW YOU LEFT THINGS?

Are you proud of what you said? What you did? How you made people feel?

If not, you need to fix 2 things:

1. The way you treat people in the present

2. The way you leave people

NEVER NEGLECT TELLING PEOPLE WHAT THEY MEAN TO YOU.

The impression you leave people with will be what they remember the most. You can greatly change their impression of you by leaving them with a different taste of you. I have discovered that the best way of changing this is by telling people all the things you left unsaid before.

I am not great at showing people how much I appreciate them in the moment. I have greatly overlooked how good my best friends are so I have to remind myself to let them know.

But when I do remind someone what they mean to me, they know it is genuine. They reconsider all of the other parts of the relationship and they recognize that they have made an impact on me. That usually helps people understand the significance of any relationship.

It is worth it to tell people what they mean to you.

It is worth feeling vulnerable with your feelings for a moment.

It is worth not knowing how someone will react to how you really feel.

But as I have said a million times before:

NOTHING HURTS WORSE THAN REGRET.

Don’t regret how you leave. Take advantage of the time you have now.

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Thank you for reading!

My goal is to inspire self-improvement in others through my personal stories and experiences.

This is The Exploration.