Today's
Meditation:
It
would be nice if we were guaranteed to have a tomorrow,
but guess what? Not a single person on this planet
can say with absolute certainty that he or she will still
be alive tomorrow. By the time our next day dawns,
who knows which of us will have moved on to whatever comes
after our lives here? The funny thing is that even
with that degree of uncertainty, very few of us use that
fact as a part of our decision-making processes when we
face decisions about what we're going to do and when we're
going to do it.
We
face reminders every day that we're mortal, yet somehow we
decide to live as if we're immortal, as if we don't have
to face death someday. We delay wants until tomorrow
or next week or ten years from now, assuming that we'll be
here later to fulfill those wants. We delay telling
people how we feel about them, we delay visiting places we
want to visit, we delay starting to write that novel or
making that quilt because we're too busy doing other
things-- not all of which we're so thrilled about-- today.
We
all have tons of choices to make every day, and most
choices that most people make ensure that the status quo
continues, be it in work or family or personal
lives. Rarely do we ask ourselves when we're facing
a decision: what if I'm not here anymore
tomorrow? If I knew I was going to die tonight in my
sleep, which decision would I make?
While
many very valid decisions do involve deferment of personal
wants in order to take care of needs of other people, not
all of them do. The tragedy occurs when we delay
valid gratification or fulfillment of wants or needs for
little real reason, and our lives are much less richer
when we make decisions that cause us to enjoy life less
today in the hopes of enjoying it more tomorrow.
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