Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
You could leave life right now. Have you made preparations?
I know, a bit crazy right? All you wanna do is get to work, get the kids to school, prepare dinner. Who has time for such eery questions? Well, death arrives unannounced, most times. Will you be ready?
Do you sometimes contemplate your own existence? Why you are here? Why this family, this set of circumstances? Whether you have it easy or not so great? It might never have occurred to you that these questions may be good to ponder, to try and find answers to.
We get so busy with life, it doesn’t matter what age we are. The only people who really spend their time pondering these questions are in their sixties and retired. They have all the time in the world. But it will be too late to change the things we always wanted to change. To make the connections that we had hoped for.
It is good to take a step back every now and then, take some time out just to think. It’s tough when you have the roof leaking or thinking about the car that is due for a service, but you’re not sure if you can afford it.
To enter into the realm of contemplation, one must in a certain sense die: but this death is the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being. — Thomas Merton
A great deal of time must be spent on this. You have to make the time. Loved ones can be taken away at any time, they could be children, parents, or partners. It’s hard to even contemplate. This is the essence of life.
It is imperative though that we find answers to some of the questions. If we continue to be preoccupied with life, one day we will find ourselves at the end of it, with more questions than answers.
It’s not that we have a short time to live, but we waste so much of it. Life is long enough, and it’s been given to us in a generous measure for accomplishing the greatest of things if the whole of it is well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and careless living, and when it’s spent on no worthwhile pursuit, death finally presses and we realize that the life of which we didn’t notice passing has passed away. — Seneca
Life is fragile. And short. Start today to make a list of who and what that’s important to you. Make time to meet, call and talk. When you think about your career, are you happy with where you are? Do you want to earn more money? Are you putting in the hours to learn new skills and expand your network?
For what a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world. An intellectual man in complete solitude has excellent entertainment in his own thoughts and fancies. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Will you make some time, today?
