the balance matters to me

Ever marveled at how a baby learning to say the alphabet becomes a young teenagers in college and thought about how incredibly wacko life is? You weigh on one side the rat race world struggling to have a career, survive, etc. and on the other side you realize that every day is so precious and beautiful that everyone you meet has got a story... Life's full of these contradctions. Run fast, yet savor each step?!

I know too many people who say to me that one can't live one's life thinking that today might be one's last and one can't live one's life remembering that those one loves could be taken away at any moment. Is it really true that one can't live thinking that? If I remember that someone I love could be taken from me at any moment in time.. aren't I more likley to forgive them and treat them with love? why isn't is a good rule of thumb?

Then there's the woman who said she can't imagine thinking about what it is like when her children now very young will grow up. Truthfully? I've heard that so often from people I know. another mother I know was saying --oh, I wish I could freeze my children at this stage. I don't want them to grow up. Why not? Why can't we bear to think that the world will change... and that life will be different? People live and people die. The worst thing is to think that people will regret how they lived in my mind. When we are sad that people die... are we sad for them or for us? I disagree with people who tell me that the worst thing in the world is death. I think that the worst thing is to regret how we have lived our lives and to think that we are alone.

It seems to me that some balance between living cognizant of the perspective on life as a broad infinite tapestry always being woven and added onto and living focused on our jobs, tasks, errands, theories, etc. is really important for not regretting and not succumbing to the idea of loneliness.