What will matter?
Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no days, no hours or minutes. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will all expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Your gender, skin color, ethnicity will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage and sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories of those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
參考譯文：
不管你是不是已經準備好了，生命終將有走到終點的那一天。不再有旭日東升，不再有日日時時，也不再有一分一秒。你所有的一切，無論是所珍愛的還是已遺忘的，都將交到另一個人的手里。
你的財富、名望和凡世的權力都將變得卑微，成為無關緊要的東西。你欠了世人什么，世人又欠了你什么，所有這一切都不再重要。
希望、抱負、計劃以及想要做的林林總總，和幽怨、憤恨、失敗、妒忌一起，都歸于灰飛煙滅。曾經是那么在意的成敗得失也變得無足輕重。
你來自哪里，你住在路的那邊，都不足掛齒。你是否擁有美貌和才氣也不值一提。你的性別、膚色、民族亦變得無關緊要。
那么，什么才是生命中重要的東西呢?你生命的價值又是如何體現的?
生命中重要的不是你買到了什么，而是你創建了什么;不是你得到了什么，而是你給予了什么;不是你所取得的成功，而是你創造的價值;不是你學到了什么，而是你教會了別人什么。
生命中重要的是你正直、仁慈、勇敢、奉獻的每一個行為。這些行為充實了別人、鼓舞著別人以你為榜樣去為這世界的美好而努力。
生命中重要的不是你的能力，而是你的性格;不是你認識多少人，而是當你離去時會有多少人感到永遠地失去了些什么;不是你的記憶，而是那些深愛著你的人的懷念。
生命中重要的是人們會懷念你多久，誰會懷念你，懷念你什么。
擁有一個有意義的人生不是偶然的事情，也不是環境所能決定的事情，而是你自己的選擇。
