Finding the Golden Ticket

Recently Jason posted a blog featuring some tidbits Erma Bombeck left behind before she passed away from cancer. I have reread her thoughts a number of times. It’s almost as if I can’t read it enough. After I read her words I feel like I’ve found the “golden ticket.” It helps me put things in perspective and gives me permission to make sure I am enjoying each moment.

The other day Jason and I were talking with some friends about life and death. We were talking about the wisdom that is gained by either a near-death experience, a life-threatening illness, or the death of a loved one. He posed the question, “Is it possible to trick yourself into having that experience without really having it?” Wouldn’t it be great to learn the lessons that those experiences give us, without having to go through them?

I really don’t mean to copy Jason, but I just happened to run across some wonderfully wise words of a dying 40-year-old man from FL. He recently passed and I’d like to share this to pass along the inspiration I gained from his wisdom. This is another great example of the clarity in thinking that one gains when faced with their mortality.

Today we have higher buildings and wider highways, but shorter temperaments and narrower points of view.
We spend more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses, but smaller families. We have more compromises, but less time. We have more knowledge, but less judgment. We have more medicines, but less health.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk much, we love only a little, and we hate too much.
We reach the moon and come back, but we find it troublesome to cross our own street and meet our neighbors.
We have conquered the outer space, but not our inner space.
We have higher income, but less morals. These are times with more liberty, but less joy. With much more food, but less nutrition.
These are days in which two salaries come home, but divorces increase. These are times of finer houses, but more broken homes.

That’s why I propose that as from today:
You do not keep anything for a special occasion, because every day that you live is a special occasion.
Search for knowledge, read more, sit on your front porch and admire the view without paying attention to the needs.
Pass more time with your family.
Eat your favorite food.
Visit the place you love.
Life is a chain of moments of enjoyment, it isn’t only survival.
Use your crystal goblets.
Do not save your best perfume, and use it every time you feel you want it.
Take out from your vocabulary phrases like “one of these days” and “someday”.
Let’s write that letter we thought of writing “one of these days”.
Let’s tell our families and friends how much we love them.
Never pass up a chance at adding laughter and joy to your life; every day, hour, and minutes are special.
And you never know if it will be your last…
If you’re too busy to take some minutes to send this message to someone you love, and you tell yourself that you will send it “one of these days”, just remember that “one of these days” can be very far away, and you may not be there to see it…..

I think we all have these nuggets of wisdom (kind of like the chocolate nuggets from a Wonka candy bar) in us somewhere and it often takes a tragedy for us to fully realize them. Can we really conquer our inner space without being faced with our final days? I’m sure going to try…maybe if I eat a lot of chocolate that will help.

[tags]Erma Bombeck, stress, cancer, busy, life, death, Willy Wonka, golden ticket, wisdom[/tags]