Musical Musing: Hurt, as covered by Johnny Cash (written by Trent Reznor)

At the end of our lives, what do we have to show for ourselves? For all of our pursuit of the latest cell phone, computer, car, video game, at the end of our lives, what does it matter? If you believe the way I do, that there is a life after this one, you don’t take the things you had here with you. What if you don’t believe in an afterlife? What if you’re nihilistic… if you believe that death is the end of it all, and you just cease to exist? Then… what is there to show for all the stuff you’ve acquired if you cease to be at the end of your life? What good is all the plastic and metal and circuit boards and bits of fluff and stuff that will be out of date before you’ve been one year in the ground?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not opposed to buying things- I’m typing this on a very nice laptop, with a sweet little droid next to me that tells me everytime I have a new email. We have a DVD collection, several video game consoles that we play on our HD LCD tv and an HD TiVo. I collect board games you’ve never heard of to play with people. I’m as guilty as the next person of chasing the materialistic dream.

But occasionally, we need to be reminded that life isn’t about stuff. Life is about people, and it’s about relationships. At the end of our lives, our stuff doesn’t gather to remember who we were; people do. Our stuff doesn’t know and doesn’t care that we’ve died; people do. Our stuff doesn’t grieve our loss; people do. In the end, people will come along behind us, pack up all our stuff, sell what’s worth selling, donate what’s worth donating, and junk the rest. Some might go to loved ones as a way for them to remember us, but in all truth, our stuff all gets redistributed, and our stuff doesn’t know or care that it has new owners.

But the relationships we’ve built in our lives- those matter. Our husbands and wives remember us. Our children and grandchildren. Our nieces, nephews. Our parents, our grandparents, our brothers and sisters. And not just family, but the friends and acquaintances we’ve made in our lifetime matter. When people met us, did they walk away better for having known us? Did we increase their joys, divide their sorrows, leave them feeling better than they did before they encountered us?

People can only measure our impact on their lives by the things they see us do… not by what we meant to do, or what we thought about them. Did we live to make a tangible effect on the world around us? Did we live to make living, breathing, touchable differences for the better in the world around us? Did we make this world better because we were in it?

It’s a tall order to fill; make a positive difference in the lives of the men and women you meet, make a tangible difference in the world you live in, change your circles of influence for the better. But ask yourself this: at the end of your life, which would you rather have- a pile of stuff and no people, like Johnny Cash (and Trent Reznor) talk about in Hurt, or the chance to go out with no regrets, knowing that you loved freely and deeply and powerfully, surrounded by the ones you love.

I know which I want on my epitaph. “She loved without regrets” not “She shopped till she dropped” After all… only the first makes a lasting difference.