When your final day comes, you yourself must be the examiner. Did you do well? Or did you squander your precious existence? You must decide. – Deng Ming Dao, 365 Tao
We harp about this all the time here at The Thought for the Day: there is going to come a time when we are going to have to examine our life. We don’t have firsthand experience in the matter yet, but, as today’s thought implies, it will probably come when our time comes to die.
When that time comes it must be faced. There will be no putting it off. We can put it off now, of course. Procrastination is something most of us do fairly well. But on our last day there will be no avoiding it; we will determine whether we made our time on this planet serve us, or rather we merely served time while we were here.
Some say it is possible to be too concerned about the future to not enjoy the present.
True and false. It depends on how you define enjoy.
If you define enjoy as merely passing your time being entertained, then yes, you are guilty of not enjoying the present. If you define enjoyment as being on your path, of living the life you were meant to live, then you are completely enjoying each day because every day is a step forward and every step forward pays a dividend.
Did you do well? Or did you squander your precious existence?
These are the only two questions that matter. We must be committed to being able to say we did well. To have a good life we must have a collection of good years. Hopefully, this collection is a long one though there are no guarantees.
If we want good years we must have good days. To completely maximize our time on this planet we must have good days every day. One good day followed by a few bad days will not do us any good, and if we’re not doing ourselves any good friends, we are not doing anyone any good.
All we have to with our time on this planet is live and learn and make our time serve us. Certainly, our time must be enjoyed, however it must not be squandered.
To look back and determine that you have lived your life well is life’s great prize. It’s there for anybody who wants it, who is willing to put nature and circumstance to work for them, who is willing to follow their hearts and trust their instincts.
