“They lose the day in
expectation of the night,
and night in fear of
the dawn.”
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca,
On the Shortness of
Life
I’ve been thinking about dying lately.
I’m actually kinda looking forward to it.
These thoughts have nothing to do with big disappointments
in life, or accelerating the time course, or hoping for an unexpected event
that might end it all –> lights out –> the big sleep –> a one way
“…ticket to ride…”
They have nothing to do with hoping I will not end up in an
extended care facility rocking back and forth until my last breath, nor
struggling through a terminal chronic disease robbing me of all self respect
and awareness. All of that is an
uncertain and totally unpredictable fantasy of the future.
Death is not the
fantasy, but spending time in fear of what might happen truly is…
Truth? We have
no guarantee of tomorrow…
My thoughts have been more along the lines of knowing the
time ‘working for the company’ is not permanent and within the constraints of
my own expectations and desires, getting as much out of the ride as is
possible.
Life passes so quickly, we often miss doing things we meant
to and find ourselves immersed in thoughts of regret...missing the moment we
are in. It is easy to fall into a
mind-set that ‘time and gravity’ have taken more than they have given.
The thing is that from the moment we take our first breath
and enter the theater of life ‘stage right,’ all signs point toward the exit
‘stage left.’ This is simply the natural
order of things…there is no eternal youth, no magic potion, no ‘deal with the
devil’ that gives eternal youth in exchange for our soul. We are, as Mark
Aurelius was fond of saying, “…but a small wet spot…” who should get up every
morning and fully live the life of a human being – whatever that means for us!
In the end, I suppose it is all about the way we view life
and the decisions we make on a daily basis (minute by minute really). Importantly, it is never too late to do things now rather
than putting them off.
Country music lyricists and musicians Tim Nichols and Craig
Wiseman, in a song recorded by country artist Tim McGraw, sum it up best in
their pop culture piece “Live like you were dying.”
…I loved deeper,
And I spoke sweeter,
And I gave forgiveness I've been denying,
And he said someday I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dyin'.
The Roman poet Horace (Odes) provided the frequently
used phrase – “Carpe Diem” (seize the day). I kinda like a modification of that
phrase a friend sent along to me: “Carpe the heck out of the Diem.”
Nichols and Wiseman were right, we should do the best to “…live
like [we] are dyin’…”
‘Cause we are…and that is not a bad thing….
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