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WORTH OUR WHILE
Monday Feb. 1, 2016
What are you wearing?
What are you wearing out?
I don’t ask myself often enough:
When this week is over, will life on this planet be different or better because you spent this week living it? Or will it be another one of those ‘I didn’t get much done’ weeks?
Taking the wrong fork on my path just as often as not, working my way along toward a destination in the wrong direction sometimes – walking my own path – marching to Thoreau’s drum.
Are we stalled on our own unremarkable path, our unremarkable lives and our unremarkable choices?
Where do you want to go, when do you want to leave?
Wearing down a previously made path is safe and sensible – making a new path is risky (but often that is where life’s best rewards live).
Hurry, you don’t want to be late for your own life …
You see, I don’t think we suffer from over-reaching. I think we suffer from under-reaching.
There is no reward for trying hard, no reward for sideline-sitting. There is a punishment for under-reaching, for under-trying, for underwhelming ourselves and the world around us.
When our lives are done, for most of us, we’ll be a footnote at best in some book – more likely a two-day run in the obits, and a fading memory for friends and family. While ‘being remembered’ is nice I suppose, when we are gone that’s of no comfort is it?
But, doing something with ourselves, with our time, with our path choices – something worth remembering is because it was worthwhile. And if it is worthwhile, chances are pretty good we will be too.
Mark Kolke
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -4C/24F, overcast and calm, commuter buzz and traffic chaos in this neighbourhood, crunchy terrain to jostle my knee (no impact on Gusta, she’s happy to dig her toenails in for a change – and life continues 1/12th of the year behind us, and groundhog day tomorrow – so we’ll have to see if there any shadows tomorrow!
Reader feedback:
ABOUT 44 OR 45 YEARS
I enjoyed your column today, DW, Chain Lakes, AB
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