The Bonfire Of The Vanities

Yesterday I helped to erase a life. My father died a week ago. Yesterday I, two of my brothers, their wives, and a few helpers, emptied his apartment. In six hours, everything he managed to hold onto for 85 years was sold, given away, landfilled or burned. All the evidence of his corporeal existence, erased in six hours. Gone, obliterated.

Take a lesson from this. Your treasures will be your children’s trash. All of your valued stuff will simply become garbage. It will burn. Perhaps if we could learn that we are not the things we accumulate, we could spend more time becoming the people we might be. Perhaps we could leave memories or works that flames can’t touch.

We are not as important or enduring as our massive egos think. A kind word today will buy you more immortality than an iPhone, diploma, job or credit card can ever manage. If you are only your stuff, then you are nothing. The laying up of treasures on earth leads only to the bonfire of your vanities. How long will it take to erase you?