What Did You Come Here For?

"Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that was worth mentioning?" Coleman Cox

What did I do yesterday? I can't hardly remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, certainly not the day before. The older I get the more I experience "Mental Pause". I go into a room to get something and by the time I'm there I've forgotten what I came for. What did I come here do in the first place? Why did I occupy this particular body at this particular southern location?

Oh year! I remember now! I came here to learn how to love and be loved, how to forgive and be forgiven, how to be patient and extend patience, to help and be helped, to ask questions and become answers for those few who need me to be even if for just a moment.

Question: What did you come here to do this lifetime?

Legacy

"No legacy is so rich as honesty." Shakespeare

This sultry summer morning as I was walking my Alaskan Malamutes for mine I saw a concrete slab that held up the park's ice machines. On it was etched the words, "Mary Koop 2005". Mary like the rest of us wants to be remembered, wants people to know she was there that day.

Since the summer of of 1984 I have written over 20 books. Mary and I want the same thing. Some of you reading this have this in common with Mary and I. You have your children, creative endeavors, projects, patents and portraits. We all want to be remembered for something, for being here, for having given something to the world that gave so much of itself to us.

Since my heart attack I've discovered that my real legacy lies in the hearts and memories of those who love me and theirs' reside in me. How people "feel" about me is rapidly becoming the true measure and meaning of my time here on the planet. While I wouldn't take anything for the books that got published I won't spend the rest of what time I have left putting publications over people at least not on good days.

Question: Who besides your immediate family will carry your legacy in their heart?

Time

Remember when you had so much time on your hands you could "kill" it and not feel a bit guilty about the crime? Remember when you had "all the time in the world"? Do you recall when "time was on your side?" Time was so much in abundance that you could waste time, spend time, lose time,and even make time, time and time again.

Since my heart attack, when time almost caught up with me and killed me I feel more relaxed about time in some ways than I ever have before. And in other ways (none of them morbid) I feel that time is "running" out.

I told a friend the other day that if the next 10 years go by as fast as the last 20 then they will only feel like 5. Today I feel that I want to make the most of the time I have left no matter how long or short that is and the way to this is by only doing what I really love and being with those I love more of the time than not.

Question: Is time a'wastin'?