I ain’t here for a long time. I’m here for a good time.
Those words are from a song recorded by King of Country himself — George Strait.
Strait’s up-tempo, Western swing tune, taps into the cliché Live like there’s no tomorrow. That cliché, of course, is more well-worn than the country star’s signature Stetson.
We’re all in on being in the moment. On living life to the fullest.
But what about the other side of that phrase? What if there really were no tomorrow?
This is a more troubling proposition for us. So much so that we try not to consider it.
Yet, we’re doing ourselves no favors by acting in this manner.
I’ve thought plenty about life over the years. And I’ve shared a lot of those thoughts right here.
But I’ve also thought a great deal about death.
I was less than 10 miles away from the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. The horrors of that day served as a stark reminder that nothing can be taken for granted.
I have tried to make the most out of my life ever since that fateful day. To broaden my impact and not leave my cards on the table.
Still, no matter my approach, I recognize that everything could be over in an instant. One wrong step and I could be gone. One Act of God could be the end of me.
It’s admittedly a bit strange going through life fully transparent on Boogeyman lurking over my shoulder. But I don’t want to delude myself into a false sense of security.
For there is no such thing as total security. As I get older — and my body starts to betray me — I get ever more convinced of that fact.
Yes, safety is a fairy tale. It’s the story we tell ourselves so we can sleep soundly at night.
The sooner we recognize that, the better.
Not too long ago, a tragic incident in Dallas made national news.
An off-duty police officer returned her apartment building. She opened the door to what she thought was her apartment and found a man inside. She fired her service weapon at that man, thinking he was an intruder.
It turns out that the officer had parked on the wrong floor of the building’s embedded garage. She was not, in fact, in her apartment when she pulled her weapon. The man she shot was her upstairs neighbor. And that gunshot killed him in his own apartment.
There are no silver linings in the story. An innocent man is dead, and the erstwhile public servant who shot him has been convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Stories like these are why I got out of the broadcast news industry years ago. I felt sick covering the most tragic acts of humanity.
Still as a fellow Dallas-area citizen, I do feel the need to reflect on this particular tragedy.
The now ex-police officer who fired the fatal shot is my age. She made the worst kind of mistake — one that cost an innocent man his life.
And the young man whose life she ended? He was an accountant with PwC, a devoted member of his church and an aspiring leader in the Dallas community. He was a better man than I. A better person than most.
His life was cut short because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But in this case, the wrong place was his own apartment.
I can only imagine how confused and terrified he must have been in his final moments. One minute, he’s sitting on the couch, eating ice cream and watching TV. The next, a stranger is in his apartment, firing a gun at him.
We can try and imagine how we might have reacted in that position. But the end result likely wouldn’t have been any different for us than it was for him.
A few years ago, I was standing in my kitchen slicing a bell pepper when I saw a man scaling my balcony railing and climbing onto my patio.
He was a maintenance worker who was giving the inside of the railing a fresh coat of paint. I had gotten an email alerting me to his presence, and I noticed ladders and workers all around the building when I came home from work an hour or so earlier. So, I should have been prepared for him.
Yet, even with that prior knowledge in hand, I was terrified for a moment when I first saw him.
As he pulled out his paint brush and waved at me, my fear subsided. I went back to slicing the bell pepper.
Still, my mind was racing.
What if that had been an intruder? What would I have done?
I probably would have attacked with the kitchen knife, I concluded. But how well would that strategy have worked?
I’m not trained in hand-to-hand combat, or on using a kitchen knife for any other purpose than slicing food. If an intruder had any skills in these areas, I’d likely be bleeding out on the carpet within seconds.
Yes, even if I mentally prepared for the worst-case scenario — by brandishing my kitchen knife like Crocodile Dundee and obsessively scanning the doors and windows for burglars — there’s no guarantee I would survive a home invasion.
And if I was caught off-guard in that situation? Heaven help me.
What do I mean by all this? Well, that young accountant who was sitting on his couch after a long day at work? He never had a chance.
He had done everything right in life. But from the minute his door opened and an armed person walked in, he was doomed.
Safety is an illusion.
What does all this mean, in the grand scheme of things?
Everything. And nothing.
There are no patterns we can use to fully protect us from death. There’s nothing we can do to guarantee we will wake up tomorrow.
The timeline of our future is largely out of our control.
It is this vast abyss of the unknown that makes death so scary.
After all, death will be the terminal destination for all of our journeys. Yet, we are in no way equipped to reach that destination.
Every fiber of our being seeks to resist the inevitability of death. Our brains process pain signals from other parts of the body to shield us from lethal hazards. Our hearts pump blood throughout our bodies, keeping us lucid. Our lungs bring in fresh oxygen to fuel these functions.
Death runs counter to all of these processes. It’s fundamentally against our nature.
This is why the will to live is so strong. It’s why we fight, struggle and hang on for dear life when we feel imperiled.
Yet eventually, death will claim us all.
And the sooner we accept this fundamental fact, the better.
I don’t want to think that tomorrow could be my last day. Or the next day. Or the day after that.
But I know that it’s a possibility.
Coming to terms with all of this is oddly freeing.
It provides me a point of reference, as far as worst case scenarios go. And that allows me to shake off those instances when things don’t go as planned.
When my sense of security — emotional, financial or physical — gets knocked down a peg, I don’t despair. For I know, in the grand scheme of things, even my roughest days aren’t so bad.
The worst case scenario hasn’t hit me yet.
It’s not my place to preach as gospel the best way to approach the subject of death.
Fate doesn’t deal all of us the same hand. We are unique, each with our own set of fears and circumstances to navigate.
Yet, I do think there is a benefit to recognizing the presence of our mortality. And to make our decisions accordingly.
If we cease the search for non-existent guarantees — if we stop letting fear of the unknown paralyze us — our uncertain future suddenly becomes much brighter. Our impact on our community becomes that much greater. And the weight on our shoulders becomes that much lighter.
A life well-lived is one not wasted.
The destination might be ambiguous. But that should not keep us from enjoying the ride.