This Temporary Life

Your life, and mine, and all lives in fact are, by their nature, anomalous. When you think about the sheer amount of circumstances needed to fall into place for you to exist . . . well let's just say that's it's a lot more likely that a particular human being won't exist than will.
Not a single one of your ancestors failed to breed.  Each one of them survived infancy and childhood.  Every one one of them lived to adulthood.  Don't get me started on the math required to demonstrate that you exist solely because each one of your ancestors mated with your specific other ancestor (out of a smorgasbord of other potential mates) at that exact moment back to the beginning of time.

You are the product of countless generations.  You are at the sword's point of evolution.  You are an anomaly.  We all are.

So when you consider the actual living miracle it is that you're here, don't forget that every other one of your planet-mates is in the same boat.  From your family members, to your neighbors sure, but also to those starving children in some far away land that you've seen pictures of but would rather click past than be troubled by.  It's not just you.  None of us likes to be sad, and thoughts like that make us sad.

We occupy our little place on Earth for a time so quick, it's practically over the moment we realize it is.  When you're a kid, a hundred years is a thousand lifetimes away, when you get a bit older you realize it's just one.  At a certain point, your vitality is behind you.  Your youth and energy are trapped in photographs yellowing in an album somewhere.

If you're of the fortunate ones, you get to see your skin sag and hair whiten, you're blessed with memories that may need a jump-start every once in a while but are long and rich.  My Dad has always said "Age is a gift denied to so many".  Ain't that the truth.  As much as we shake our heads and feel sympathy for our elderly brethren, they are the fortunate ones.

This life is temporary no matter how long we shuffle this mortal coil.  Just being here is a miracle left unfulfilled by literally trillions of other potential people - who knows how many geniuses we're never to hear of.  Every decision you make in your life should honor that evolutionary miracle that puts you behind a computer reading this.  Every choice you make for your own life should also take into consideration the fact that every other being on this Earth is as much of a miracle as you and should be treated as such.

Your whole life is spent in transit - from the moment you slip into the world to the moment you slip out.  It's easy in this make-believe world of ours to put so much importance on details that we forget the big picture.  We spend so much time living our lives that we forget to be alive.

In this temporary life of yours remember to live.  Stopping to smell the roses was a cliche to me until I moved into a house with rose bushes.