Mortality

"They think they can do anything.", "They act as if they're invincible.", or "They only think of themselves." These comments, and others like them, have been uttered for years by the elderly as they look at "kids these days".

I used to be confused whenever I heard such statements. They didn't really make all that much sense to me, so I just set them aside, not paying them much attention. However, looking back at my memories I can't help but concede that the older generation may actually be right. Each of their scathing comments are indeed founded upon a grain of truth. I mean, they've been there. Each and every person who utters such a statement has been the age that they currently look down upon, and for that reason speak not just according to what they've seen recently, but also according to their experiences.

Each "old-timer" can look back on his/her life and remember the times when anything could be done. When they believed they were invincible, and as a result of that ended up being fixated on themselves. I'm sure that if you look back on your life you can think of those times too, and if you can't that probably means that you are currently situated in one of those times I'm describing.

I remember being at that stage, the stage where I thought I was INVINCIBLE! It began when I was in grade one or two. I hadn't reached the point where I thought I knew everything, but I did believe that everything knew me! I had somehow come to the conclusion that I was of such import to the world that everyone and everything knew who I was. Why did they know who I was, you may ask? Because I was invincible. Nothing could hurt or hinder me, and that's just the way it was. Or so I thought.

Then Experiences began to crop up that proved me wrong; they proved to me my own mortality. When I was in grade three I enjoyed being on the Cross Country team. I wasn't the best, but I certainly wasn't the worst. The best in our grade was Jason. We would go to practice with the other grades and he still ended up within the top five! But then something happened. On one of our runs he and this other guy were vying for position as they headed into the home stretch. Then, somehow, Jason got tripped. He fell and scraped his knee, though when I say scraped I mean 110 x worse than the everyday scrape when a child asks for you to kiss his/her boo-boo. You could literally see his knee cap, and an ambulance rushed him to the hospital. As a young kid that sight definitely put a damper on my feelings of invincibility.

A few years later I was again reminded just how mortal we are. I was on my school's basketball team and it seemed that this year was plagued by deaths. I can't remember how many condolence cards our coach passed around to show our sympathy for one player, then another, and then another. The following year I received a card of my own as my Opa (grandfather in Dutch) succumbed to his own mortality and passed away.

These experiences, and others like it stood out in stark contrast to the view I had had of my own invincibility. I began to realize that everything has its consequences and nothing really lasts for ever, least of all our lives. Don't get me wrong, I have a strong conviction, and attest to the fact that there is life after the death of our mortal bodies. We do have more to look forward to, but we need to realize our own mortality. No matter how hard we try to set it aside the temporal nature of life is just, temporary.

As I reflected on these experiences and all I have learned from them, I couldn't help but wonder if I was doing enough about it. Life is short, so why put things off for tomorrow that can be done today? I don't have regrets about my life, but I want to keep it that way. Life is too short to look back at something that's been left undone, and then wonder how things could have been different. And so I ask...

...if you were to die tomorrow, how would you live today? Are you living that way?
Just a thought to keep in mind.