There was a book one of my daughters was required to read in highschool, that was not only unmemorable, but so tiresome I don't think she was able to force herself to finish it... so there's no telling what the outcome was on the report she was expected to turn in.. I doubt the line about 'everyone lived happily ever after' was either adequate or appropriate for a book with a theme of an African safari - since the whole purpose of going after big game with bigger guns is death. I think hunting with high-powered weapons or even a bow and arrow so un-sportsman like, I find I am always rooting for the deer, turkey, buffalo, antelope, elk, African wildlife, whatever does not stand a chance against modern weapons of war.
But in that book was a most memorable line. Which I immediately copied down and have repeated often over the years, suggesting -or more likely demanding - that this is what I want carved on my tombstone. (Even when they remind me that I told them I wanted to be cremated - therefore leaving no place for anything permanent to be written - so I suggested a bench someplace people could sit and ponder...)
So this is it: 'If you are not doing things for fun anymore, you might as well be dead.'
Which says to me that you need to deliberately plan your life so you are doing things that bring you joy. Not necessairily determined to scratch something off your bucket list on a weekly basis, but making conscious effort on a regular basis to do those things that had you saying 'I wish I could...' or 'If I had the time I'd...' Don't wait until everything is in perfect alignment: that will never happen and you will look back on a life lived much to cautiously, having been the one who so carefully stayed on the well-marked roads, and missed out on all lots of opportunities for joy.
If you came across something like this on a big marble marker in a cemetery, would you be amused? Or confounded? Or think: Crazy Person buried here?
No comments:
Post a Comment