The Whole of It

My mother used to watch a soap opera titled Days of Our Lives. A narrator introduced each episode with the line: “Like sands through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” I can still hear the theme song playing in my ear. That was nearly sixty years ago. 

Lately, I’ve been thinking about time and legacy. The following poem, which was posted in Maria Popova’s blog, The Marginalian, caught my eye: 

THE WHOLE OF IT by Hannah Fries

If you step back, you can see it allon the horizon: your mother’s death, the childrengrown, their smooth eyelids crossed with veinslike saffron filaments.

Further still, and seeyour smiling grandmother treading the cold ocean,tiny lakes in her collarbones, your great-great grandchildren drawing their namesin the sand with sticks.

The seasrising and falling, ice scraping the earth,and pockets of life surviving — lee sides, hot springs,protected places. First light on the first dayof your life, and first light of first stars.

And in this way, every death, each apparent ending,might, in the mind of spacetime, be woveninto one memory, so that always isthis tree, and the long days of falling in loveover the intricate pattern of bark and leaf,and the first green cell learning to swallow sun.

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Life is ephemeral. Time is what we are made of. 

Physicists claim there is no such thing as universal time.  Mystics make a similar claim, pointing toward the eternal now. Time is the name we give to change. Change is constant, so time moves quickly. 

But in the present moment, time stands still. We are free to experience this moment whenever we’re not thinking about what we’ve done or what’s been done to us. Sadly, such presence usually escapes us. 

To be comfortable with time is to be comforted by life’s kaleidoscope of moments. What higher aspiration could there be than to revel in the best days of our lives, as they happen?

Now that I’ve reached my 70s, life is exerting a new sense of urgency, as if saying: “Seriously, you need to listen to me!” 

I am listening! 

FamilySearch, a website managed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, apparently has the largest genealogical database in the world. Upon reviewing it, I was amazed to discover that one branch of my family tree dates back to the 1500s. Hoping to extend my actuarial odds of about twelve remaining years, I decided to tabulate family life spans going back four generations in all directions. The analysis proceeded smoothly until I inserted the red arrow. 

The chart calls up what Andy Dufresne said to Red (Morgan Freeman) in The Shawshank Redemption:

“I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really.

 Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

I’m planning on the former.

I’ve set a new personal goal: To fully live the best days of my life as they happen.

We never know how many days we have left, so I might as well begin by appreciating today! I’ll be extending that to tomorrow as well. I don’t want to miss any rainbows! Writing about the pursuit of a life well-lived keeps me focused on the sunny side of life. I think that’s important!

Do you have a habit that focuses you on the sunny side of life? If not, starting one is worth considering!

Thanks for hanging out with me!

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My first book, Towards A Life Well-Lived, can be purchased by clicking this link. Proceeds from sales are donated to Peace In Schools, a Portland, Oregon-based organization that supports mindfulness training in high schools. 

Stay tuned for my new book, The Secret Within, which I expect to make available in time for the Holidays.