The Utter Waste of Time That is Anger

Copyright © 2018

by Ralph F. Couey

Going to the Doctor's is something that is almost routine for most folks.  I know that for most of my life it certainly was.  But past a certain age, things begin to go wrong, as they do with any piece of equipment with an expired warranty.  At that point, the attitude is, "what's he gonna find wrong this time?"  As it happened to me the other day, I walked out with a clean bill of health.  I found my mood turning celebratory, and yet at the same time reflective.

Aging is inevitable and unavoidable, certainly there is nothing that can stop or even slow the inexorable march of time.  Life changes from an unlimited horizon to an end that is suddenly tangible.  Our mental attitudes change as well, some just waiting out the time, others choosing to squeeze as much living as possible into what little time is left.  But time...the one thing that always takes and never gives, hovers over us, diminishing just a little bit more every day.

One of my favorite Star Trek quotes is by Jean-Luc Picard:

"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives.

But, I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey

and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again.

What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived.

After all, we're only mortal."

As the good Captain says, every day is a gift, and should be treated as such.  The sun rises on 24 hours of opportunity, and should never be wasted.  The most poignant lesson that we should have learned from that tragic day we remember as 9/11 is just how tenuous our hold on this life truly is, and therefore, how vitally important those moments truly are.  On any given day, a particular journey could end with a tragic suddenness that is shocking and incomprehensible.  And in the aching aftermath, all that would remain would be those moments.  And those memories.  There are thousands of loved ones whose last moment together on that bright and beautiful Tuesday morning was a perfunctory parting on what should have been just another work day; people whose hearts now ache, longing for just one more moment.  

Life is a whirlwind.  Sometimes it seems that our existence consists of being flung madly from one vortex to another.  We can get so caught up in the “have-to-do’s” and “gotta-be-there’s” that crowd our schedules, that we can become completely oblivious to those marvelous moments of the “now.”  

Moments like hanging with your best bud, laughing and having a great time, and suddenly you realize that you’re experiencing that perfect moment of friendship. 

To hear that joyously uninhibited sound of a good old-fashioned belly laugh coming from a child who will never again be that cute.  Or that young. 

To look across the room at the love of your life and get a smile in return.  Not just any smile, but that special one; the smile they save only for you.  

To walk beneath a Maple tree on a perfect fall afternoon and be showered with leaves of gold.  A private, very personal ticker-tape parade pronouncing that life...your life...is worth celebrating.

These moments are ephemeral; filaments, really.  But these are the filaments that when woven together form the richly beautiful tapestry that tells the story of life.

Our lives are a long series of interconnected threads stretching from the dimming past towards the fog of the unknowable future.  As we travel along that journey, we share the path with others at different stages.  Some will walk with us for nearly all the way.  Others will come and go, some will return for a space and leave again.  As each of those lives intertwines with ours, we are both enriched. Those friendships and those loves both energize and sustain us.  And also help to keep us on the right path.  Our individual stories are those woven into the larger tapestry that is the human story.  That larger story links us all in ways so basic and fundamental that it gets overlooked by whatever divisive passions occupy us at a particular moment.  If it were only possible for all of us to remember the links we share; that there is far more that we have in common than there are those things that tear us apart.

We are angry these days.  We spew hatred like a flu virus from a sneeze.  And it is poisoning us all.

Time is slipping away.  We all have such a brief time on this planet, and in this life.  Why can't we recognize the value of the opportunity of time?  And the penalty of lost moments when we squander that gift?

Each one of us is the product of our own journey.  What we've seen, heard, felt, tasted, even smelled on that long walk has shaped our views and opinions.  Because of that nobody is fundamentally wrong; we've just all seen life from a different perspective.  Because of that, we don't have to agree with each other.

However, we must respect the journey.

Time is slipping away, and with it, our lives.  Let us not wait until old age before we look back and realize how much time we've wasted being angry.  Loving each other may be impossible.  Perhaps we should try simply to respect each other.

It is a far better legacy to leave.  Then the quality of the life we have led, and the peace that has resulted will be what we have left behind.  And for those who follow, that will be a trail worth walking.