Kute Blackson asks what you'd do if today were your last day, then argues you should do it anyway. He uses stories from his own life and sudden tragedies like the Phuket tsunami to show why waiting for the right moment to live fully is a waste.
Chapters
Question I want to ask you to think about as you go back into your life, since we only have a short time together, is what if today was the last day of your life? What if today was the last day of your life? Would you be ready? Think about that for a moment. Would you be ready to throw your arms wide open and say, take me, I'm ready. I'm giving everything to everything as everything? Or would there be some regret? Would there be some resentment? What's ungiven? What's unspoken? What's uncommunicated? What's unexpressed? What if today was the last day of your life? What's ungiven? Who would you need to speak to? What gifts still remain in your heart? And how would you need to live in such a way? So you might be saying, coot, Come on, man, this is a fest. Don't be so dramatic. You know, you might say, well, my astrologer told me that I'm going to be living till around age 92, you know, and I truly hope that each of us live a long life. But to me, the real success of life is not the duration, but it's how you live while you're living it. What if today was the last day of your life? How would you need to live your life? Rearrange your life so that if death came, you could throw your arms wide open and say, yes, I'm ready, fully ready right now. That as you get ready to go back into your lives, you live every single day in such a way so that every single moment of your life, you can say, yes, yes, it's a good day to die. I believe it's then in that moment, you will be fully alive. You know, we're in Phuket, Thailand. Let me ask you, the people in the Southeast Asian tsunami, did they have any idea that that day, right here, they would not come back and get to look their loved ones in the eyes one last time and say, I love you. Did the people in 911 have any idea that they would not come back that evening and look their children in the eyes and simply say, one last time, Forgive me. What are you waiting for? A special time, a special moment, a special person, a special sign. Waiting is an illusion. It's a complete illusion. Time to lose the weight. Right now, this moment, I was in Ghana, West Africa. My father's from Ghana, my mother's Japanese. I grew up in London. I live in Los Angeles. I don't know where I'm from. And I remember I went to Ghana for a Special birthday. Went with 12 friends. One of my best friends, a 65 year old former intel executive, a man by the name of Sri, an amazing Indian guy. We were like an odd pair of brothers. And he came on this journey and one day we were all dancing together and we were all dancing, you know, beating the drums. Anyone like dancing? I saw you dancing the other day and we were beating the drums, dancing together. And he came up to me and said, koot, I have a phobia of dancing. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, ever since I was a child, I couldn't dance. And I said, sri, you just gotta free yourself. You just gotta just like do whatever and just like be okay with it, you know, take the judgment off. And we went to a town. The next day we were met by 3,000 people. And there was Sri. And we all left, getting ready to go onto the bus and there was Sri. We looked back and he was in the middle of the courtyard and there he was dancing, dancing, you know, dancing. And there he was like Rumi had possessed his body. And he was dancing and dancing and he was dancing. And you know when you see a soul breaking free of the limitations of their Persona, you know that joy when you see someone breaking out of the prison of their personality? And he was just dancing and I was so happy. Months later, he traveled to the Sahara and I called him up when he got back to Phoenix and I got his daughter. And his daughter said, sri will call you tomorrow, my dearest friend. I called him the next day and she told me Sri had died. And I was devastated because I loved Sri. But there was so much more we had wanted to create in the world together, do together, express together. And I was saddened and I grieved and I cried. And months later, one day I saw a vision of Sri dancing. And there he was in my vision, dancing. And even though I was saddened that my friend Sri had died, I was ecstatic that while he was alive, that while he was alive he dead. To dance a fest my brothers and sisters, will you dance? Will you do your dance in life when life calls you unreasonable, when life calls you unrealistic, when life rejects you, Will you dare to dance? No matter what music the cosmic DJ is going to play, Will you dance?
