Making The Most

Yeah... gotta start lookin at the hand of the time we've been given here this is all we got and we gotta start pickin it every second counts on a clock that's tickin' gotta live like we're dying We only got 86 400 seconds in a day to turn it all around or throw it all away we gotta tell 'em that we love 'em while we got the chance to say gotta live like we're dying

-Kris Allen, "Live Like We're Dying"

In these last moments that count where one could be able to look back and see not just the big picture and the long road where one walks, but the individual moments as well. It is in those single, particular memorable moments that most of the time, we are drawn to stop and think about our life. And from there, questions that we have been asking repeatedly emerge in a new light: Who Am I ? What Am I Doing In Here? Where Am I Headed To?

But sometimes, these moments slip as if they were not at all important for us. Living in a world where everything seems to suddenly come and go, with one thing proceeding after another in a short span of time, it really is hard to notice and gaze at the different events in our lives. Writer Ursula K. Le Guin spoke of the world as in heat, in a high state of entropy, that everything is unstable and could not be noticed. Alvin Toffler would say that we are always in a "future shock," and the present seems to be absent in every moment of life.

With these bleak pictures of the world, is there a possibility of slowing down and taking a look at things, gazing at them and dwelling on the meaning of these things? I believe there is, and what is needed for us is to only look.

I believe that the greatest skill in life that one has to have is the ability to look and listen, and it is when he feels becoming more human than he could ever think of. It is then that he is able to look at things and how they are related to his own search for meaning. It is only in the act of looking that he is able to come up with insights, with wonderful and meaningful thoughts about himself and the world he lives in.

But more than that, it is in gazing that one appreciates time, that it is not just made up of fragments or chunks of moments, but a continuous flow of things in their appearance and in their flourishing. It is in gazing and thinking about things that we appreciate the fact that despite the swiftness and brevity of moments, it is nothing but very rich with meaning and significance.

And with that, we hope that we live like we're dying, that we learn to treasure each and every moment in our lives, to see them as grace, as gifts that we continue to receive in every moment that we live, gifts that ask us to respond by seizing the moment, doing the best that we can. Each and every human act well thought of in various moments of one's life are acts of gratitude towards the Giver.

Thus, it is possible to stop for a while, take a break, and appreciate life as it unfolds before us. But one thing we must not forget is to seize the moment and make full use of it. Never take things for granted, and live life as if it is your last breath.

You live what anybody gets… You got a lifetime
-Death, "The Sandman" Series