Life :: essays research papers

Life; A Work In Progress The average person has a grand total of 2 billion seconds to live out their existance. For those of us lucky enough to live out this time in relative health, or to exceed it, shouldn't we be trying for something more? It ends, people. Life ends. There is coming a time when your heart stops beating and you lie dead and cold on the floor somewhere--and that is it. No redo's, no timeouts, no second chances. Only the bittersweet what-ifs that you will have plagued yourself with for the remaining moments of life. 2 billion seconds doesn't seem nearly as long as my life feels, and I am still a kid. And yet we waste time bickering over the television, fighting over the computer, and resenting each-other over petty quarrels. A saying comes to mind when you consider how sad people can be; when you honestly consider that they would throw their time away on such things. It is a classic case of not being able to see the forest, through all the trees. When infact, those trees that you are so desperately trying to see around are the forest. You are trying to get past that next tree and then, then the forest will be in plain site. Only, it isn't there, and one more tree is in the way. First the tree of graduation is in your way and soon the tree of college jumps behind it. The tree of mediocre jobs blocks your view for years as you try and see around it it. The tree of midlife, or of retirement get in your way as you try and see the trees of contentment, happiness and fulfillment that affirm that 'yes, you have made a difference', and that when your two billionth second chimes to a close, and your eyes glaze over, you will not have been forgotten. That is all we want, people. That is it. One simple goal that will push every American until they die. That one goal of having meaning. Trying to hold on to the fact that, "if I make a difference in someone else's life, then mine will have mattered." So the question is, if making a difference to someone else's life is so important, and they are trying for the same goal you are, then why isn't making a difference in your own life just as important.