Sunday, November 04, 2007 Lim: Life and death By Melanie T. Lim Wide Awake
LIFE is too short to live longing—to do all the things you always wanted to do but never did—because you say you don’t have the time to do it.
Time.
True, we don’t have enough of it. But we have enough time for the things we really want to do.
We don’t have time to hit the gym. But we have time to go shopping. We don’t have time to clean our closets but we have time to read People, Yes and Hello from cover to cover. We don’t have time to visit the sick but we have time to get highlights.
When we say we don’t have the time, what we really mean to say is that we don’t have the courage and the commitment to do what we say we want to do.
I don’t want to lie in my deathbed one day thinking about all the things I always wanted to do but never did because I was too lazy and too cowardly to get around to doing it.
I’ve always believed that life must be lived—doing all that must be done not dreaming of all the things that one would like to get done.
I’ve had bouts of depression in my life—moments when I felt like giving up.
But then I thought of all the other people in the world whose pain was greater than mine and who have managed to hold on all this time. If they can get through their torment and pain, I should be able to do the same.
Those in great pain give me hope. If I am able to hold on, I too perhaps can offer hope. When there aren’t enough zeroes in your bank account to write a check, there is always hope—probably one of the best gifts you can give to those who have been robbed of it.
How would you like to be remembered?
I’d like to be remembered as someone who celebrated every day of her life by going after her dreams, living the life she wanted and standing up for what she believed in, no matter what. I don’t want to be remembered as first or best. I want to be remembered as someone who sought to be first or best but ended up being different from the rest.
I don’t want to be remarkable for whatever talent I hold. I want to be remarkable for the human being I hope to become when I am wise and old.
Only God can grant me the opportunity to become that person. But whether or not that day arrives in my life is not important. What matters is that I spend my life trying to do what God wants me to do in this life.
I don’t believe it’s what I actually achieve that matters. I believe it’s what I decide to make room in my life for that really matters. I believe that what will eventually define my life will be the people, places and causes that I find the courage and commitment to make time for.
It won’t be how many degrees I’m conferred or how much money I will amass but what I die trying to achieve that will make my life matter.
In the meantime, I strive to live my life well, living it for others even as I live it for myself.
Life is too short to live dying—insulated, self-absorbed, indifferent.
