Perhaps you have had a recent brush with death; a glimpse of your own mortality. Perhaps you've survived some kind of health issue that could have killed you. Perhaps you are a member of Arapahoe high school in Littleton, Colorado wherein two people were shot and wounded recently. Perhaps you walked away from one of the other, all too common, shootings that seem to plague our world. Perhaps you're a service member who made it home alive and are struggling to understand why your friends didn't. Perhaps you are an older person whose lost so many friends and family members over your life while you're still here. You've likely experienced some form of survivors guilt. You've wondered why you walked away when others weren't so fortunate. It may not seem like it right now...but life has handed you a gift. Remember how you felt when you realized you survived. Remember how the things you thought were important didn't seem to be so after walking away. The things that are really important in your life seemed to crystallize and become clear. Remember that. Use it to become a better person.
If it made you want to go home and hug someone you love...remember to hug them every day. You never know how much time you have left. None of us knows how much time we get. Life is short. It's shorter for some than others. We only get one shot at this life. Time only moves one way. How we spend our time, how we spend our lives is entirely up to us. Life can be cruel. It can break your spirit...if you let it. Pain will happen to all of us. Physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain...they are all a part of life. Like the saying goes, however, suffering is optional.
We all have it in our power to choose how we deal with the pain that will come. We all have it in our power to be the person we want to be right now. We don't have to wait for some big event in our life. We don't have sell everything we own and move to the other side of the planet in some kind of search for the meaning in life. We can find it right where we are....right now. Use the pain life presents you with to become a better person. Be worthy of being the one who walked away.
Remember what's really important. Whether we know it or not, we're all a part of one family. We're all in this together. Choose to uplift instead of tearing down. Choose to forgive everyone for everything. Choose to love. Open your eyes to the miracles that are all around you every day. If you've lost someone you cared about, fold them into the person you are becoming. Keep the best of that person alive by holding their memory in your heart. Allow people to see the person you cared about through you. Be the best you can be for them. Work on making the world the kind of place it should be.
Make the fact that you walked away mean something. Remember what's really important.
