“We’re not in a camp in Syria.” –Sue Fisch, my mother, putting things in perspective.
Brittany Maynard was a beautiful and seemingly (if you saw her) healthy 29-year-old who made use of the Death with Dignity Law in Oregon last week. She had a recurrent brain tumor and had been given 6 months to live. Suffering though she was, she, her parents and her husband created adventures that were items on her bucket list. Brittany didn’t want to die, but she chose to do it in a less horrible way than was in store for her. If you read her writings, she was an incredibly generous, open-hearted person, wishing her husband to find a wife and become a father, hoping her parents would not suffer, rather to focus on the good times they had….
When we were little, it never worked to choke food down hearing children were starving in Africa/China, did it? In my case, it made me feel momentary hatred and frustration toward these famously starving faceless strangers, because they were always mentioned while I was not eating something I found disgusting and getting in trouble for it. Believe me, I’d have preferred they eat it than me. Perspective can’t be forced, no matter who is trying to shove it down your throat. But on the other hand, sometimes perspective happens, and we change with intention or even effortlessly: Brittany Maynard, survivors of a hurricane, displaced people in (pick a place)…or Michael Jordan’s last shot or the accomplishment of a friend close to us…big or small, negative or positive it doesn’t matter. The question is, what will it take?
For us to stop complaining?
For us to seize the day?
For us to do what would we do if we knew we could not fail…or that we’d be dead in a month (heaven forbid)?
We’ll never be younger than we are today, and life doesn’t last forever. You know this. Let’s stop wasting ourselves on what isn’t good and what hasn’t happened.
Today is the day where you choose one thing that is important to you and you make it happen.
If you need help, ask.
If you’re tired, rest and come back to it.
If you just don’t wanna, choose something else.
Today. Life. You. Proud.
Give it your all.