As I write this, one of my best friends is recovering from surgery. His left lung was removed on Tuesday morning in an attempt to remove a cancerous tumor from his chest, and while the operation appears to have been a success, he will no longer be able to live his life to the fullest.
He is only 22, a recent graduate of Polytechnic University with a high-paying job in the computer science field. He has a tremendous life awaiting him, even with his new handicap. But he was stricken with cancer and almost missed out on it all. He's 22.
So what do I feel about this? Am I sad? Depressed? Angry at a disease that can strike anyone of any age with any future? No. I am looking at my life. I'm wondering if when I reached 22, I would be ready to pass on. The answer is a resounding no. But why is that? Haven't I lived my life to the fullest? Haven't I gotten the most out of every day? Carpe diem, they say. And we all agree. Seize the day. But do any of us do it?
Too many days have I spent in a stupor of laziness. How many times have I looked at the phone, thinking of calling someone to enjoy a night out but turned back to the TV? How many hours have I spent playing video games instead of living life? Foolishness like this fills our days to the brim but leaves us feeling empty. It makes me wonder about my time of passing. When I shuffle off this mortal coil, how many regrets will I have? How many friends will I have spent too little time with? How many women did I shy away from when I should have had more heart and gusto? Where would I have liked to go but never made the time to get there?
We all enter into a routine in our lives. We eat and sleep every day, generally go to work Monday through Friday and endlessly try to mate with the most attractive prospects we can find until we "settle down." Then we buy a minivan, raise the 2.2 kids, retire and spoil our grandkids. So many get stuck in this schedule of life, following the textbook example of those who've gone before us. The world expects this of us, but is it really what we want to do? Is it human nature or just a defeatist attitude that leads us down this path? We are programmed from birth that this is the way life is - you work hard, raise your children as well as you can, and play if you have the time.
But something is missing in this cycle. Where do you let go, be yourself, do whatever comes to mind? On your vacations, they say. Those one or two weeks a year you don't have to sell your soul to your corporate masters. We work so hard only to die at the end of our lives with regrets.
We need to change our thinking in this country. We need to get past this Puritan ideal that life has to be hard and full of long labor hours and that our only purpose is to procreate and serve god. Where does that get you in the end? Did you see the Great Wall of China? Did you swim with tropical fish off the coast of Mexico? Did you spend a few years traveling everywhere your heart desired? No, your vacations weren't long enough. You had too many responsibilities.
In my life, there are hundreds of times I've shied away from taking chances. People I never got to know because I was too afraid they'd reject me. Opinions or views I never expressed for fear of being ridiculed.
As early as last month, I started the theme of missing out on trips I'd love to take by not going to Ireland. All I had to do was save up $250 by the end of August for a down payment, but I was too lazy to do so. I couldn't get off my lazy derri?(c)re and put in enough hours at my job to get the money. Why, you may be asking? Didn't I want to go? Isn't this the trip at the top of my list of countries to visit? Because I have my entire life ahead of me to make the trip.
But what if I were diagnosed with cancer when I was 22 and never able to make the journey? I would have missed out on something I've always wanted to do because I didn't make it happen when I should have. Chalk up another regret for that fateful day I no longer walk the earth.
You're probably saying to yourself right now, "Enough of the negativity already!" And you're right. There is likely still time to do everything I've always wanted, time for most of us to do what we want. But what comes tomorrow? Your life could end tomorrow, and if it did, what would you wish you had done? The first answer you come to is what you should be doing right now. The second an opportunity appears or is made, you must grab it and run. Death has a habit of showing up when least expected. Being young doesn't make you immune. Carpe diem.
