Ripples of Life // Ripples of Death
There are endless amounts of quotes, movies, books, etc. all yelling one incredibly clear message: live your life to the fullest. We all want our life to mean something, to make ripples in the waves of the world. We want someone to notice us for the extraordinary things that we do.
And rightfully so. We should strive for our lives to mean something greater than ourselves, to have a goal that will further influence people for years to come. I think deep down, it's something that most humans alive want to know -- that their life will be remembered by someone. It's scary when we realize that our life is becoming something mundane and boring, something that children write about when they're in the first grade. Get up, go to work, eat, sleep, repeat. So there are countless self-help books telling us to grab life by the bootstraps. To step up and really make our life what we want it to be. To go and achieve all the things that we've been dreaming of our whole life.
I think we do this because we're scared of dying.
Our society puts so much pressure on living the best life that we can because we're scared of death. The ultimate end to anything that we've been doing. It's the only deadline that really matters, and the scariest part about it is we don't know when that dead line is. We only know that it could creeping up on us, ready to jump out at the worst possible time, or peaceful waiting to take us after years of suffering and pain. We just don't know.
Today in church, the bulletin said something along the lines of "pray for these seven or so families and the loss of their daughter/sister/mother/grandmother/etc." I thought that was a really profound statement without trying to be. The affect of one person's death is tremendous. Without even realizing it, my church emphasized the ripples that one death can have through countless lives. While society is so busy telling us to make our lives heard by the world, we forgot that we make the lives of the people near to us so special. We so focused on getting that promotion or that new job or helping these people with x, y, and z that we forget about our families and our friends who pour into us and who we pour into.
Our lives do matter, and wanting to be known for something more than just another body taking up space is essential to motivation and drive in this day and age. However, I think we need to take a couple steps back from our big, worldwide dreams and think about those that are standing right next to us, our loved ones and our neighbors. Those who will feel the ripples of our death even before we do something great. I think we need to shift our focus to those around us, and together, we can conquer so much more than we can alone.
Life, Dying, Death,
Carly
And rightfully so. We should strive for our lives to mean something greater than ourselves, to have a goal that will further influence people for years to come. I think deep down, it's something that most humans alive want to know -- that their life will be remembered by someone. It's scary when we realize that our life is becoming something mundane and boring, something that children write about when they're in the first grade. Get up, go to work, eat, sleep, repeat. So there are countless self-help books telling us to grab life by the bootstraps. To step up and really make our life what we want it to be. To go and achieve all the things that we've been dreaming of our whole life.
I think we do this because we're scared of dying.
Our society puts so much pressure on living the best life that we can because we're scared of death. The ultimate end to anything that we've been doing. It's the only deadline that really matters, and the scariest part about it is we don't know when that dead line is. We only know that it could creeping up on us, ready to jump out at the worst possible time, or peaceful waiting to take us after years of suffering and pain. We just don't know.
Today in church, the bulletin said something along the lines of "pray for these seven or so families and the loss of their daughter/sister/mother/grandmother/etc." I thought that was a really profound statement without trying to be. The affect of one person's death is tremendous. Without even realizing it, my church emphasized the ripples that one death can have through countless lives. While society is so busy telling us to make our lives heard by the world, we forgot that we make the lives of the people near to us so special. We so focused on getting that promotion or that new job or helping these people with x, y, and z that we forget about our families and our friends who pour into us and who we pour into.
Our lives do matter, and wanting to be known for something more than just another body taking up space is essential to motivation and drive in this day and age. However, I think we need to take a couple steps back from our big, worldwide dreams and think about those that are standing right next to us, our loved ones and our neighbors. Those who will feel the ripples of our death even before we do something great. I think we need to shift our focus to those around us, and together, we can conquer so much more than we can alone.
Life, Dying, Death,
Carly
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