I recently had coffee with a friend who has cancer, and is in need of a miracle.
So, here’s a question that resulted from our discussion: What would you do if you had 60 years to live? Six years? Six months? Six weeks? Six days?
Speaking for myself: what I would do is based on an integrated approach to life.
Integrity or ‘integritas’ in Latin, means ‘whole or wholeness’ and is the root of the word ‘integrated’.
How do you achieve wholeness? We invite you to check out the page IntegratedLife.network. This example of the activities to practice to grow in each part of your life, to achieve wholeness, is how I and others do it, but there are other activities you can do. This page also offers you a one-page downloadable tool to get you started (no opt-in required).
So, what does applying your whole self day-to-day, or leading an integrated life look like? How do you start? Scheduling your calendar in this order:
- Getting right with God (spiritual) – spending time on our relationship with God everyday is added to your calendar first.
- Getting ourselves right (personal) – making principled decisions every day, every hour, every minute, because we are the sum of our decisions – for example, after God, a principled decision is spending time on our relationships with family, and is added to your calendar next.
- Getting our work right (professional) – in my friend’s example, spending time on our cancer treatment options – personal, and our business activities with any time remaining.
This is an integrated approach to life and death IDEAL, but it’s also very practical!
I’m sure you notice that ‘getting work right’ is at the top of the integrated life process visual. This does not mean we advocate putting work before God. However, in my experience, while not ideal, this part of our life usually remains top-of-mind (admittedly, it did for me). Moving clockwise, getting right with God follows (however you will notice we recommend it as the first priority of each day). Continuing clockwise, the ‘missing part’ to practice an integrated life is usually getting ourselves right through personal growth.
Ironically, the principles, virtues, as well as our mission used in personal growth are imprinted on our hearts already. Practicing personal growth through principled decision-making draws them out and combines them with our knowledge & experience for greater results.
We all have a life-threatening condition – mortality, but by adding the practice of personal growth, we can take an integrated approach to life, not just death, today–that’s rightly ordered.
I would like to publicly thank my friend for the inspiration to write this post and to honor him. He never settles for comfort, because he knows we’re all made for greatness. I will close simply with the questions from earlier:
What would you do if you had 60 years to live? Six years? Six months? Six weeks? Six days?
