Now finally unwinding from a very busy weekend, I've had the opportunity to sit back and think and one thing has been nagging at my consciousness. Though only now have I stopped to consider..
It was my son's first birthday party and we had family in from all over the state. With a true Southern family dynamic, we are loud, hungry, and well, exhausting! 馃榿
It was a great time, my son made out like a bandit, with the learning puzzles and alphabet-learning noisemakers and toys for helping him with his balance. It was a grand haul and we are so grateful to have so many in our circle that are blessed with an extra measure of generosity and charity (to all my stalwart helpers, my wife thanks thee from the bottom of her heart). We are so grateful to be so blessed ourselves.
We have limitless amounts of wise counsel and companionship, love and joy surrounding us, it's next to impossible not to exude the qualities tenfold. Despite all the moaning and groaning about minuscule, infantile worries, it's increasingly more difficult to deny all of the abundance we enjoy (while simultaneously rebuking, a story for another post).
The thought that penetrated my subconscious while wrapping up this weekend, is one of the most pure thoughts that ever does latch and ever has latched to my heart. It's the idea of our categorical end. The finite lives we live.
Watching my son learn and grow this past year, and seeing so much of myself (and my wife) in him, brings on this overwhelming sense of ourselves. More specifically our sense of fatalism. Despite all the joy of abundant life, we are hyper-cognizant sometimes of our limited lives. But this shouldn't be said with negative themes. It inspires me to live for today, plan for tomorrow, and be generous with my time and devotion to that which ought envelop our lives. My wife and children. My family and friends. My charity. My church body. The wretched and the hungry.
I don't personally believe that we are on this earth to simply fulfill all of our primitive and egotistical desires. The most worth, value and fulfillment I find in myself is when I sacrifice for others and devote my own free time to helping others. Nothing on this earth has quite the same feeling. This feeling paired with increasingly more prevalent thoughts on mortality, drives me to my utmost. Drives me to be the best that I can be. Every single day.
My son's lessons on mortality have taught me valuable lessons only more valuable because at the ripe young age of 26, I may yet have many more years to compound my own growth and thereby spread the seeds of this powerful understanding to others.
Thanks for stopping by but please do remember to give a part of yourself to protecting your legacy by cherishing your time. It's what you're here for. No doubt.
So.. #carryon lest you become carrion.
