100

I mentioned my cardiologist in a previous post, Intelligence. In another of our conversations, when we were both in our late fifties, he said words to this effect: You know, not that long ago, if someone made it into their fifties, that was considered a long life. Life expectancies were shorter, and most people could have been grandparents by then. Every day you live past fifty is a gift. That said, my job is to make sure you don’t die of something related to your heart. I replied, “So…I can die of something else, then?” That’s what specialists aim for, apparently.  

I’ll put aside the realization that seeing specialist doctors is like a pinball game; we bounce from one to another hoping to score big points and win. The greater realization is that relatively few of us will live past 100. We are ephemeral – in this plane, at least. The Earth may be 4.5 billion years old, but as Isaiah proclaimed, “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.” If we have good luck and good medical care, we can live 70-100 years, perhaps more. No matter what we do, our time on Earth is limited.

So, I write these blog posts in the time I’ve been given. Mostly, I write to crystalize my thoughts and more importantly, to maintain my sanity in an often-insane world. I reflect that some among us take steps to shorten their lives or worse, the lives of those around them. A few even encourage taking the lives of people who disagree with them. I cry out, “Life is far too short for that!” While I hope to help myself and others live longer, more meaningful lives, maybe the most I can expect is to offer a few of my thoughts to let others know they are not alone in their thoughts.

When I began Works Blog, I did not set out to write 100 posts. Just as every journey begins with a single step, I’ve been sharing these posts one-at-a-time. This should give hope to anyone who is starting a journal, learning a new skill, or trying to break a bad habit. The idea is to live each day as best we can, realizing that we don’t know how many days, or how many words, we have left. My Dad is in his nineties, and he doubts that more than two other people in his high school class are still alive. Much about them will be forgotten as the flowers of their lives fade away. What matters most is how they lived while they lived. The same is true for all of us.

Socrates pointed out that if we want to become good, we must seek to improve ourselves, rather than crush others. As I write this, an unprecedented number of people seek to dictate how others live their lives. Some declare that those who don’t agree with them are “enemies of the state.” Some describe well-intentioned people as “evil.” Some believe certain topics ought to be forbidden, or that freedom of speech should apply to them and not others. Some take offense on behalf of others. Some think being questioned is the same as being persecuted. Some make too many attempts to control others and too few attempts to control themselves, forgetting it is much easier to signal virtue than to be virtuous.

Unless someone is doing harm or planning on it, why should I try to force them to do what I want? My parents used to tell me, “Mind your own business.” Growing up, I must have heard this phrase hundreds of times. A greater teacher once said, “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” I got the message: Make sure your life is in order before you set out to control the lives of others. Certainly, if we don’t agree with something, we have the right to say so – by speaking the truth in love and offering positive suggestions. We also have the right not to participate in what we believe is wrong. In the end, we need to realize our attempts to control others often make life worse. There is a better way.