
We Could All Die Tomorrow, And That’s Okay
As I sit here and order a road atlas, realizing gas stations rarely carry them anymore, I realize that really, an apocalypse could be unleashed upon us tomorrow.
All it takes is one person with access to nukes to have a bad day. Isn’t that fun to think about? You can go about living your entire life with someone you’ve never met lording nuclear armageddon over you, and never even think about it.
Until that person decides they want to block out the sun.
I’m going to have some Navajo tea and go to sleep, but at times like these, I’m pressed to think about how little control we really have over our lives. You could spend your whole life trying to “kill it” or “crush it”, long nights away from home working on some project or career. You miss your children taking their first steps. An anniversary dinner. A chance to catch up with an old friend in town.
And then one day, you get home, and find that everything has gone to ash. Everything you chased — an illusion. Those people that are gone are now the only things you want.
But perhaps this shouldn’t be anything we fear. When I was young, I’d always ask my mom why we couldn’t get a dog, and she’d always tell me “Because one day it will die.”
That reason never made sense to me. Of course it’s going to die. Why clean your house if it’s going to get dirty? Why enjoy the day if it’s going to become night? Why breathe in, when you must breathe out?
The great part of living with a dog, of course, is enjoying the joyous times companionship brings. You provide love and compassion for this creature, and it provides love and companionship to you. There are hard times, but certainly the good make them worthwhile.
As we boogie along the waves of annihilation, let us find peace within ourselves. Did we enjoy the good times in our lives? Did we help those who helped us? Did we show our appreciation to the people who made our lives worthwhile?
Or did we take these times and people for granted? Did we put off enjoying our sunniest days for our loneliest labors? Did we find that our dreams were built on sand?
It’s not too late to let someone know that you love them, to hug an acquaintance goodbye, to call a friend whose relationship you let wither.
Go outside and enjoy the plants and blue skies — we live not for our deaths, but our lives. We’ll live for the times that make life worth living. Of course we will die, and that could be today or tomorrow, but let it not be said that there was no point to our being, if not to live.
