The Importance Of Now - The Secret Ingredient For Any Creation

"You can suffer in this world and the next, or you can live your life properly. Rejoice in the happiness of now, safe in the knowledge of the future."

The Opposites, Verses 15 & 16

Life is precious. Some years back, as a youngster living quite contently with the way things we're going, life decided to show me a profound lesson that forever changed the way I looked at things. Back then, the idea of dying was not exactly something I thought about; life was an endless summer for me.

It wasn't until that fateful morning, as I was taking my car out of the garage, when a neighbor approached me and told me the news that a very close friend of mine had taken his life that everything changed.

Her words at first didn't quite register, I was unable to fully comprehend what she was saying. I was in complete disbelief and it took me some minutes to make sense of what it was that she was saying.

Quite numb and in a haze over what was beginning to sink in, I drove over to a friend's house. I got out of the car, gathered my thoughts as best I could, and mustered the courage to tell those close to me what I had just heard.

We knew that his brother was out of town; we had no idea exactly where he was staying and had no way of reaching him to tell him what had happened. We made up our minds to somehow find him and so we drove on a 2 hour trip hoping that we might.

As providence had it, after knocking on many doors we found him. My stomach churned over giving the grim news. What made it worse was the long trip back, I'm sure it was even worse for him. When we got back, we immediately took him to the morgue where his mother was waiting. Getting there, I swallowed hard, my heart sinking even further in this gloomy place, but it was looking into his mom's eyes that finally broke me.

I could not help it; I cried uncontrollably, desperately trying to control myself but unable to do so. The anguish was too much. There was no comfort, all I felt was pain.

At the funeral, still in shock I looked up to the heavens asking myself why he had taken this decision; I was mad at him, mad at God and mad at myself for for letting something like this happen.

I wished at that time to never again have to go through something like this...as life would have it, it didn't turn out that way at all. Some years later, another one of my friends took his life as well. What's more, a couple of years afterwards my best friend, a pilot, tragically lost his life in an airplane accident.

What seems like something out of "Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events" actually redeemed and woke me up to something very important...

Through the tears, anguish and pain, I am still here. I am not broken. I can make a difference in someone else's life. If only through a kind smile, a compassionate hug, a caring word, we all touch upon and influence everything around us. We bear a responsibility towards ourselves and others, to hold this life precious.

Life is as it is. Though harsh and unforgiving at times, incomprehensible and unknown, we all have a choice of shaping our thoughts and creating a life well lived rejoicing in the happiness of now. After all is said and done, our future depends on what we do and think at this moment. That is well enough.

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