LIVE YOUR DASH

A Subtle Message

Recently, I attended a funeral that had a subtle, but powerful message.  Far too often we get caught up in the stress of life and forget to take in its beauty or cherish the moments with loved ones until it’s too late.  A friend from another lifetime uttered the words “live your dash” as he recited his father’s eulogy. Something that touched far too close too home for me, but those words “live your dash” meant nothing to me until he unveiled the message behind this quote.  A simple message that flooded me with emotion.  Live your dash represents the hyphen between the day you were born and the day you died.

What Does it Mean to Live Your Dash

This subtle message triggered a flood of emotions when I heard a dash represents the moments in my life. I’ve lived my dash, but have I?  I’ve sat on mountains, swam in oceans. Experienced foreign cultures, and learned some hard lessons along the way. I’ve filled my memory bank from moments with friends & family as well as with strangers. I’m living my dash, but am I? What constitutes a good dash? Achievements? Social invites? Money? Knowledge? Happiness? Am I the judge of my dash, or are my peers? In the end, I believe only you are in charge of where your pursuit of happiness leads and what that entails along the path of life.

People wander in and out of our lives for a variety of reasons. Leaving an impression for us to recall their dash. A punctuation mark representing all the different versions of you. A caring kind soul to friends & family. A hardworking ambitious co-worker. Adventure seeking traveler. A handy neighbor or even a cheating ex. A little symbol between two dates was put in place of all your accomplishments, kind gestures, sacrifices, birthdays and so much more along the way.

What’s Your Passion in Life

We have no control over the dates on either side of our dash. The time in between isn’t predetermined, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get to see the life your planning 50 years from now. Find out what you want in life and pursue it with a burning passion. Like a skier chasing powder days, or a surfer seeking the perfect wave.

To live your dash isn’t about acceptance. Materialistic gains or even how you’ll be remembered in a church filled with grief-stricken peers. What matters is how we live, love & The poem by Linda Ellis ~ Live Your Dash is a powerful but subtle message if your ready to hear it. I heard it at a funeral the other day, and hit me with a flood of emotions as I hear the dash between the year I was born and the year I passed away was all that represented my life now. How do you live your dash? spend our dash. To truly live your dash means to know what that little line is worth in comparison to all your years on Earth. It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years that determine how well you’ve lived your dash.

Live Your Dash

Living my dash has brought me around the world and back several times, but those that I have encountered along the way have long come and gone. Forcing me to reflect on my choices. Questioning my goals while clouding my reasoning and purpose. Giving me pause before my next adventure, and creating hesitation before allowing others into my world because so many have come and gone; some barely even amounting to a memory anymore. It’s a saddening realization of how much time my closest friends have missed from my dash, and how much dash I’ve lived away from my family.

Live Your Dash

This last year was filled with a lot of missed opportunities as it always is, but death is the source of life. With its unique way to harvest impatience out of regret over lost years. Creating new energy to stimulate old ambitions & lost cravings. There’s no time like the present to chase down those desires you’ve had your entire life. To live your dash is to feed your passion, find your potential and follow your dreams. Take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you’ve never been hurt. Don’t be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin. Nothing lasts forever, so live it up, drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the bullshit, take chances and never have regrets because at one point everything you did was EXACTLY what you wanted from your dash!

“Live your dash” “LIVE THAT LIFE”

Live your Dash is a slogan I wanna share with the world because in the end all your tears, joys, loves, heartaches become a simple hyphen between a few numbers. How do you want that punctuation mark to represent you at the end?

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4 Comments

    • Thanks Anne for taking the time to stop by my travel blog. Had you ever heard of the Live Your Dash Poem before reading this post?

  • I just discovered your blog and I love it. I’m binge reading it right now. I appreciate so many of these articles/posts so thank you! So inspiring and fun!

    • Ahh thanks Julie! Love logging into comments like yours. Thank you so much for visiting my travel blog. Happy travels and hope you have a fantastic weekend!!

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