Every year is one year closer to my death.
Every month is one month closer to my death.
Every week is one week closer to my death.
Every day is one day closer to my death.
Every hour is one hour closer to my death.
Every minute is one minute closer to my death.
Every second is one second closer to my death.
Why am I wasting any of that time?
This acknowledgment of my impending demise it not a morbid or fatalistic fascination with my death, but rather an appreciation of the life I have left. The slide down the backside of life gives you a new perspective. In the past, days went by and days went by and each day was a day that just went by. Now, each day, hour, minute, and second have a new importance, an urgency that will not be denied.
This doesn’t mean that I won’t be spending my time snoozing in front of the television, or swinging in a hammock reading a book, or going to work every day. It means that I will be participating in those activities (or lack of activity) because I consciously choose to.
I think that is the big difference between my youth and now. I would float through days without regard to the value those days held. Time seemed to be an unlimited resource. Now, I can almost count the number of days I have left. That once limitless number of days has become a very finite commodity. And, just as in market economics, a short supply makes a thing much more valuable.
In these downhill days, your health has a way of constantly reminding you that there is limited time left. I was walking through the grocery store yesterday and I suddenly had a severe stabbing pain in the left front side of my chest. It was bad enough that I stopped walking, waiting for it to pass, wondering what it was, and even if it would pass, or if I would shortly be lying on the floor croaking, “Call 911.”
But it did pass, and as I did not appear to have any other symptoms related to any medical emergency that I know of, I went on my way, wondering if I was just given a momentary reprieve. So far, I seem to be okay, but who knows what lurks within the chest of this old man? In fact, I just had a twinge as I picked up the phone to answer it. Nothing else, though. Indigestion? A new blood clot in the lung? Who knows? Wait to see if it happens again or gets worse, I guess.
So all the more reason to take the best care of your health that you can, and to do the things that you want to do, rather than pretend like you will live forever regardless of your dwindling resources. It’s a lesson that I am learning very late in life, but not too late (hopefully) to take advantage of the lesson. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?