Taking Stock

I guess Avelox makes a person introspective, or maybe it is the fact that the doctor told me that if it weren't for the pill version of Avelox she would have had to hospitalize me. Avelox is a really scary black box warning antibiotic, with side effects that have even scared Hubby! Whatever is causing my current state of mind, I'm siting here wondering what kind of person I want to be, tomorrow, next year and thirty years from now. That's not such an easy question to answer.

My dad died when he was just a couple of years older than I am now. My son's dad died new year's eve 2007, he was only a couple of months older than I am; and a 26 year old man in my little town here in Kentucky, who apparently had no health issues, died of swine flu last week in a matter of days. We often hear, and I have been know to say "live today as if it were your last". OK that kind of works for me, but then what about the fact that I may have another 30 or more years of living ahead of me? Is the way I lived today something that I can look back on in 30 years and be proud of?

Finally how do you live everyday like it were your last and also live it as if it were the first day of the rest of your life? Are the two even compatible? Am I living my life in a way that both fulfills me and is sustainable day to day? What are the things that fulfill me? I think the one thing that makes me the happiest is when I can engage a person, be they a stranger, friend or family member and make them smile and and let them know that I think that they are special. What is interesting about that is that it doesn't matter what I am doing to put that smile on someone's face, just that they are smilling and for a moment, however fleeting, I've made their life better.

I firmly believe that we are born with one real goal; to leave the world a better place than the one that we were born into. Some people do it in a big way, Edison, Einstein, Bethoven, Mother Teresa, most of us only touch the lives of a few, but that doesn't change our goal or should I say life responsibility. For me, for today, puting a smile on your face, would mean that today I justified my creator's decision to give me life.

What is your life philosophy?