Life is to be Lived

Life is to be lived…

As children we play,
unaware and unconcerned with the time or the weather,
laughing and learning and playing,
fearlessly venturing into cold water or
riding bikes through the mud or
going barefoot in the summer grass.
As time goes by,
we busy ourselves with work and schedules,
the chores of daily life,
habitually and without feeling checking items off a list of what needs to be done,
becoming more worried about dirt and dollars
than having fun, feeling young,
running through the rain on a hot summer day or
making snow angels when it’s cold outside.
And, later still, as we age and realize that time has passed us by,
leaving behind a wreckage of regrets and missed opportunities,
we learn that every moment is a blessing, a choice to be made,
to drown in the monotony of the mechanical,
or to live, to laugh, to share the moment with someone special,
to make a memory or take a chance.
And, having learned our lesson that life is short,
we try to pass on this lesson to the younger generations
who are unaware of their fading from life into their own cycles of the familiar.
So, as the parent teaches the child in youth,
there are lessons also to teach in adulthood.
Raised to practice responsibility, having grown into a prosperous adult,
the final lesson to learn is to compliment the duties of responsibility
with moments of reckless abandon;
for if, when our time here is over, we maintain the plans, the regrets, the dreams
we have known in our lifetime,
but lose the ability to do anything about them, wouldn’t we rather
be comforted by memories of laughter, time with loved ones, and moments in the sun?
Life is to be lived and enjoyed.