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I had a lucky "kiss" in Viet Nam at age 19 (one of several). A bullet just barely grazed my helmet cover and hit a tree behind me. I dug out the slug and kept it as a reminder - you never know when your time is up.
Carpe diem.
Recently I had a medical emergency and had to be taken by ambulance to the ER. The EMT asked my age, and I had to think for a few seconds before I remembered the correct answer: 64. Then I thought, "Sixty-four? Is that ME? Holy ****!!!!" For the first time in my life I really felt that the time I have left is diminishing rapidly.
While I was waiting in the ER for the results of my blood tests, EKG, x-rays, etc., I decided I need to get busy with the rest of my life. Fortunately the tests all turned out to be negative, and I went home within a few hours, but with a sense of urgency.
I've made some actual plans (airline reservations, etc.) to do some things I always wanted to do "someday." I don't have much of a bucket list, but I have started setting it in motion. If not now, when?
Four years ago my doctor said I had five years, not that I obsess about it but I have 398 days left.
I'm determined to beat him. In the meanwhile I'm buying property that I plan to keep until the market picks up, how's that for optomistic.
I've never been afraid of death and after my father and sister died, with whom I was very clsoe to both, I just think I will have great company whenever I go to the great beyond!
Sometimes I think I am wasting time but never really do anything about it, other than read more books... Hahaha.
I've been aware of it for a long while because thruout my life, many people I know and who were close to me, died young. So I try to be optimistic and humerous about it. For instance, when having to re-drill the irrigation well for $6,000, I say to myself, "phew! that will be the last time I'll need to pay for that". But when it's time to buy a new car, I'll have to pick one I really want and NOT be practical because it will be the last new car I'll ever buy.
I wrote the OP late at night and didn't tie my thoughts together too well . . . the main point, for me, was that I take life for granted, I "forget" how old I am, I "forget" that life is not indefinite . . . so when I remind myself that I might have one minute or 10 or 20 years, it lights a fire under me to do some of the things I want to do (or move in the direction of pursuing my goals instead of wasting copious amounts of time, as I seem to be naturally prone to do).
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Heaven help us!
