Leaving words after you pass on

Imagine this - you are now lying on your deathbed and you have a thousand and one things you want to say. No, this is not about you wanting to give the pink flowerpot to Auntie Rosia or save the purple shawl for niece Maria. All these would have been covered in your will. I am talking about those heartfelt words that have nothing to do with items of tangible value. You know, phrases like "I love you" or those long passages that convey your secret admiration for that xxx someone. It is easy for me to suggest that if you have such intense emotions bottled up, you should let them out at the earliest appropriate opportunity. Life is short. Sooner than you know it, you will be aging and calling your clutch your best friend. Yet as straightforward and rational as it sounds, there are words that are just so very hard to say face-to-face to someone. Perhaps you might have the courage to fire off an email when you are drunk. Just perhaps. I know it is hard because there are words I want to say to people around me but I have not done so. An popular alternative would be to leave these words with your will. Your will will deal with the mundane assets of your mortal life. The accompanying letters will take care of the rest. This is not ideal of course since if you can find the courage, the words might be better said when you are alive (maybe, and for most circumstances). But if you can't, then these letters written with your quill with tears brimming in your eyes would have to suffice. I came upon an electronic alternative just now - MailFreezr at www.mailfreezr.com . It provides the facility for you to send emails years into the future. You can "freeze" your emails and then have them sent out at your chosen dates. Since the minimum period you can freeze is 1 year, I can't really test it out (lol). Neither do I have the patience to wait 1 year and see if it really works without a glitch. The maximum period is 100 years but this is not really an issue since it is rare for someone you know to live that much longer than you. There are limitations to MailFreezr though since e.g. you do not know how secure it is and if the site will still be around when your email is due to be sent. This site is a slight twist of a concept already around for some time so I am not exactly recommending it - it's more like just another passing remark. :P If you have words you want to leave, there are 2 main approaches. The first is to just say them when all parties concerned are still alive. The second is to leave letters accompanying your will. But I can think of a third actually. Life is short... so why even bother and fuss about all this in the first place? =)

Just how nice are you?

Have you come across this website www.helpothers.org ? It is an experiment in kindness and I like to do my part to spread the word. In fact, to go further and be more precise, it is an experiment in ANONYMOUS kindness. Sounds cool right? It *is* cool. Let me quote verbatim from the website: "It's a universally recognized symbol: smile. Sometimes you smile because you're happy and sometimes you smile to get happy. The purpose of our effort is to bring more of those smiles in the world through small acts of kindness. To that end, we feature a fun SmileCard game, kindness stories from around the world, and SmileGroups where people commit to a daily act of kindness in their local community." So what they are encouraging is that you do someone a kindness quietly, and slip him a "card" to let him know that he is "tagged". It is the hope that he will pass on the kindness too. So what exactly is this "card"? Well, see the embedded picture? This card can be ordered in batches FREE. This is no scam and the cards are funded by donations. I have ordered these cards before and they arrive quite quickly. I forked out not a single cent - yes, not even for shipping! So here's the challenge. Go to the website and order your batch of free SMILE cards today, do someone a kind deed, and then tag him with one of the SMILE cards. And if you want to help spread the word too, give this article a digg. ;-)