My brother-in-law's best friend has been having headaches. They finally got bad enough to send him to the ER, where he was told he had a brain tumor. They operated the next day. The tumor was very large; the prognosis was very bad. It all happened in a matter of days.
Sometimes, life changes faster than that. We are never prepared. We had a storm in St. Louis last week. It was unseasonably warm, and a rash of tornadoes ripped through here, flattening houses and business in its wake. True, this is tornado alley, but not usually in the middle of winter. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, but a lot of people came close.
We take life for granted. We take health for granted, until we lose it. Is it human nature or just our western culture that blinds us to impermanence? Would I live differently if I remembered that all I can be sure of is this very moment? I know I would.
Resolving to live mindfully—being totally aware of NOW—would be a good way to begin 2011.
5 comments:
Correct take on life, Bobbi.
Live each day as if it were your last.
An incredible post, Bobbi. Can I copy this as a guest post on the WomansPlanner.com blog? (Lol, as you site beside me while I write this.)
Bobbi, I'm in Queensland Australia - we saw news of the tornadoes over your way. We're in the middle of record-breaking floods, whole towns have been evacuated for the first time ever. An area the size of France and Germany is under water and the flood waters haven't peaked yet, and all this from one cyclone that barely rated the designation because it collapsed into a rain depression almost as fast as it got to be a cyclone. Six cyclones are predicted for this year. This is a normal cyle for Australia - we have 9 years of drought, and then we get floods for a few years, then things are not too bad for a few years and we move into drought again. But it's interesting that there are such extremes all over the world, all so interconnected :)
Looks like this one elicited a response. Certainly, the news was a wake-up call for me. It was 40 years ago that I first saw Ram Dass's book, Be Here Now. It was an amazing idea at the time, but most of us didn't get it. Maybe we are all slow learners.
Whenever the unexpected occurs, I am reminded once again to try to approach the small things in life with a lighter step. And I do, for a while. Then, little by little, I start plodding along again. If only I could learn to focus on what is really important. Guess I'm one of those slow learners, but I'll keep working on Ram Dass's message.
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