I was walking down an aisle in Kroger's the other day, intent on picking up a package of my favorite peanut butter sandwich cookies. I'm addicted to them. Yes, I know they're not good for me. Yes, I know I am a diabetic. Sometimes, though, you have to yield and step over the line. I wouldn't call it 'living on the edge', but you get the idea.
As chance would have it, I overheard a young gal talking on her cell phone as I passed by, obviously unhappy about something.
"I HATE my life!"
I hate my life. That's a pretty big statement, especially from a young person who has yet to experience so much more of it.
I thought about what she'd said as I drove home. What could possibly be so wrong that she hates life? Well, her life, anyway? Had she just been dumped by a boyfriend? Was she telling a friend that her parents wouldn't let her go to the mall after school tomorrow? I mean, how could anyone take this, the life that we have been given, so lightly?
I know what you're thinking: "Chill out, it's just a figure of speech." While that may be true we should never take our words lightly. Ever. Be thankful for your life no matter how bad it seems.
That's the problem with our world today...people taking things, not only life, for granted. You get in the car, turn the key and expect the engine to start. Same thing with life; we expect to wake up and open our eyes every morning, never imagining what could have happened as we slept. Every morning across the globe, however, people who had expected to wake up, to resume their lives where they'd left off the night before, don't. They had plans. They had schedules and activities. Places to go and people to see.
And I'd venture to say they didn't hate their lives.
If she thinks life is so bad she should consider the person suffering from emphysema, struggling just to draw each breath. Or the combat veteran, a victim of multiple traumatic amputations after the detonation of an IED while he served in Afghanistan. Or the single mother of three children, working several part-time jobs just to make ends meet and getting no financial help from her ex-husband, who just keeps plugging along because she knows those kids depend solely on her.
She doesn't want them to hate their lives.
I could paint several dark scenarios in which people struggle to live, to stay alive, but my point is this: life is fragile and precious. All over the world there are folks hanging on by a thread, grasping for even just one more minute of life. When I discovered I had small-cell renal carcinoma...kidney cancer...I could have cried and wrung my hands in hopelessness. I didn't. I wanted to move ahead immediately. We have to look beyond our problems, our issues, and meet them head-on with a plan of attack. Giving up and hating life? That's the easy way out. It takes drive, motivation and a lot of self-evaluation in order to see a path to overcoming our own personal obstacles. In some cases, there is no pathway, so what do we do? How do we go on, knowing the termination point is approaching?
You live your life the best way you know how. You get the most out of the time you have.
You make each day count.
