Many years ago when I taught a course of Journalism in high school, I asked the students to do something they all despised. It was something out of the ordinary and really an article that made them think about their life and the direction it was headed in. Their assignment was to write their own obituary.
Many of the students came to me and said they didn’t know what to say. I told them to say something about what their life stood for, speak about their family, talk about their church and civic activities, and say something about their accomplishments and how their actions made life better for people around them.
These students did a good job and many of them told me how it made them think about the direction their life was headed. So many of us today don’t take the time and realize the direction our life is headed. All we want to do is what is good for the moment and don’t realize what the long term effect will be on us, our loved ones, or our friends and neighbors.
I often wonder if all English teachers in schools around the nation required every student to write their own obituary, what effect this would have on their future. Would it have changed the lives of some incarcerated drug addicts and dealers that watched the news media and thought that it was a life of glamour and money? I have to wonder if some of the teenage pregnancies would have been avoided. What would some of our people say about abortion?
Maybe some of our government officials that voted to take God out of our schools would have a different outlook for our society. What would their friends and family say if in their obituary it read that they were the ones responsible for dispensing with Bible teachers and readings from our public systems?
Writing your own obituary is not an easy task. Take a few minutes and try it on your own and see what you come up with.
