How many chances do people get?
let me briefly acknowledge the existence of a metaphorical elephant. People are born into privilege even if their parents were not. That privilege determines, to some extent, your number of chances both from a theoretical and a physical/health perspective.
if you are the beneficiary of kind and generous and well meaning parents you will get a lot of chances to screw up or fail. If you are not, you most likely will not. I’ve had many chances in life and I’ve failed many times.
however, time catches up with us all eventually and as I sit here well into Friday’s early morning I realize I don’t have too many chances left. I’m getting older and I’m still not getting the exercise I need. I’m still not dedicating the required time to words. I’m still not eating right. All of that is measurably unhealthy and shortening my lifespan. Moreover, it saps the quality of life I can expect to live in the time I have left. Yet, again and again I do nothing. Then I get another chance to try.
this cannot continue forever. I have to get right and I have to find that daily will to do it. It’s hard to do it here because of the example I’ve set over the years that my kids follow in their own do nothing ways. Why shouldn’t they? Who is showing them not to?
I need to be better and in need to find the will to work against the tide to do so. Maybe that changes the tide over time, but that isn’t what is important in the short term. I need to change me.