We’ve had occasion lately to look through our possessions, a reminder of how hoarding comes easily to most of us – that weakness of keeping something for a rainy day that never comes; stashing away a book until a time forever postponed.
A good friend once shared how, after turning 60, he calculated with a bit of luck he’d be fully productive for another 15 years. So he put 180 marbles into a vase, each one representing a month remaining in his four score, ten and a half. Thereafter, on the first day of the month he withdrew a marble – the falling level a sobering reminder of the finite nature of his greatest asset.
While that vase of marbles will serve as a physical reflection of mortality, it should also encourage us to live every day as though it were our last. Otherwise what’s the point? As Mark Twain put it, “The fear of death follows the fear of life. A man who lives fully, is prepared to die at any time.”