And the rush of people was outrageous. If there can be a maximum capacity of people allowed to be in this grocery store at one time, it had been reached. And amidst this mass of strangers, I was thinking about how much work I have to get done today so I can potentially go see Bruno tonight. AND amidst this mass of strangers, I was waiting in line behind an elderly American couple.
The elderly couple had nothing to purchase except two individually boxed, pre-made sandwiches.
The old man asked the man at the register if there was a place in the store where they could just sit down and eat.
The man at the register sort of gave him an idiotic stare, looked around, and answered "well, no. This is not the kind of place you just sit down in..."
And of course, what went through my mind was initially 'of course. of course it is not. It's a crowded grocery store.'
but then it got me thinking on the bus ride home... Our lives are so short and we never take enough time to "just sit down." We wake up, we follow our daily routine--which usually includes heaps of stress and work (especially if you are studying at Oxford for 6 weeks), and then we do it all again the next day.
We're constantly GO GO GO. And at the end of the day, we crash.
If we are the lucky ones, we will all live to be around the average age of 80-ish.
And when I think of being that average lifetime age of 80-ish, I think about my grandmothers. The both are widows. They both have lived 4 times as long as I have.
And it's a strange realization to have, but I realize that one day, I too will be old and wrinkling and having my knees and hips and other bones replaced like clockwork. And it scares the hell out of me that time can pass so quickly. And it's so strange to think that all the elderly people were once in our young shoes before too.
At one point, they were stressed about school work that they thought they would never see the end of. At one point, they dealt with heart break that they thought for sure would destroy them. At one point, they have lost loved ones, they have had children, they have traveled, they have had the world at their fingertips and they have had the world slip out of their grasp.
So, what am I getting at? I don't know really. It's just a thought I had that sometimes comes into my mind from time to time. We will all grow old and one day...die. I don't mean to be gloomy, but it's just human to acknowledge.
So, I ask all of you, are you living to your fullest? Will you look back at your life when you are 80-ish and say, "yeah... I had it made." Or will you say, "I wish I didn't get so caught up and stressed out about the little things in life that eventually will never, ever matter."
It's easy to say "live everyday like it is your last." But are you really doing it?
What will the world have of you when you leave it?
the world will have some great pictures of all of us from last night at least
ReplyDelete"Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster."
ReplyDeleteI was wasting time in the library yesterday when I stumbled upon this quote by our former president Teddy Roosevelt. That quote was probably made sometime around the year 1900.
"That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it,
squeeze it and hold it
Cause we consider these minutes golden."
That's an Eminem quote from a century later than the one from Teddy Roosevelt, but we're still tooting the same horn 100 years later. Nothing has changed in respect to time; it still flies by!