Grateful for Me

Someone once said to me:​ ​“You have to fight until you can’t anymore, physically and mentally. You have to fight until you believe in what you’re fighting for, but if that belief goes away you have to stop fighting. Then, only then, you’re allowed to take your last breath, but when you do so guarantee that your death won’t be worthless, that you won’t become just a body ready to vanish in the depths of the earth. Make sure when you go you have lived your life to the most extent and have achieved your dreams whatever and however small they might be. Make sure when you die you will be remembered, that your death will have a meaning. Make sure that even after your stories will live on through the words of the people around you, but don’t rely on the people that you know in your present life to mourn for you or better yet be there when you need them the most. The reality is that now in days there is no certainty of how real one truly is. Therefore don’t leave it up to faith that whether or not you will be mourned for, cared for, and remembered. So before you leave, guarantee your place in the world, guarantee that people will be impacted by you, that even after your death people will keep your name alive. A name that you have to create for yourself, a name that will be repeated through generations to come, a name that holds everything you stand for within itself, if you fail to do so, you will become just another lost soul floating through the air trying to find a place to belong to.”​ Then I asked:​ “Isn’t that selfish? To things merely for the return of good words from people? Solely for the purpose that I will be remembered for years to come? To want to do things for the benefit of myself alone?”​ He answered: ​“The world takes away so much from you, it brings you hardship in return for your hard work, it throws obstacles along every road you take. It never gives you anything for free. The world keeps taking and taking from you but never giving anything back in return, all that you have is the result of your hard work, yours, not anyone else’s, yours alone. And when the time comes to leave this world does she offer anything to you? To take the pain away, give you peace, give her hand when you are sinking down in the hands of death, anything? Even after your death it longs for your success, it takes away your work for a fragment of land for your body to get eaten up by, and if you wish that your body gets spread through the wind rather than get eaten away by magnates, the world will still take away your work. When you’re ready to leave the world you are on your own, it will all be in your hands and maybe the creator, whoever that might be. Hence it is okay to be selfish, to care only about yourself, to think that this time you are allowed to take away from the world and take it away like your life depends on it. Whether you succeed or not it will determine how well your soul will be treated after you're gone. So make sure that all your hard work pays off at the end, that you have made a mark on the hard surface of what we consider life, that when you disappear every single person you have ever known will mourn so sorrowfully that it kills them just a little bit inside. You shouldn’t fret about those you have left behind, because those who truly loved you and cared for you will forever hold a piece of your soul within their hearts. It is alright to be selfish, to love yourself, to want to be remembered, to want your name to live on, it’s alright because if you don't do that for yourself, then no one else will.” 
-Anabeh Shahbazian

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