How best to come up with your Last Wishes? Hmmm.
Suppose nothing is jumping out at you, excited as you are about being a Good Samaritan from the Great Beyond.
There can be some background anxiety to doing it right — to make the most of the chance, not blowing it by requesting something stupid. Boy, do I get that one. Perfectionists in the world unite.
In the process of coming up ways to brainstorm your good deeds list, I remembered a cool story from my own life that fit right in.
A bunch of years ago I had a friend (Natalie) who got a surprise of a lifetime. Out of the clear blue sky she heard from a childhood friend (Ben) that she was being gifted $100,000! Cue falling off your seat and checking your hearing.
Ben himself had gotten an unexpected inheritance of a huge amount. (Sounds like a novel, but hey… apparently these things can happen.) His own fall off your chair moment.
Ben was already doing well in life… he was happy and content, not in dire need of anything. So he got the idea to just be generous. Spread the love around. He decided to take a bulk of the money and gift it to people in his life who meant a lot to him. Natalie had been especially kind to him in high school at a time he really needed it, and he never forgot it.
So he sent her a hundred grand because he could.
It struck me as a kind of Last Wishes thing.
We can be generous to an unsuspecting person because it makes us happy. They once made us feel special in a memorable way, so why not return the favor?
This example was money, but that’s just one way to do a good deed. In fact, most of the time it’s not about gifting money. Writing a heartfelt letter can change a person’s life. Bequeathing someone a special item has all kind of feels. And asking for the gift of time or an action is probably the most powerful.
And still. I liked the total surprise element to this gift. It got me thinking how I could add something like it to my own Last Wishes. I don’t have the kind of green paper that Ben came into (at the moment, anyway), but perhaps I have an abundance of something else I could surprise someone with.
Good inspiration, huh?