WHAT'S REALLY IN YOUR FALL-OUT SHELTER?

So, the world didn’t end today.  Maybe you heard.

But maybe the lesson here is actually that we should spend more time acting as though it were still going to.  Maybe our take-away is to live our lives as though our days are actually numbered.  Because they are, of course.  And for some of us, even single-digit kinda numbers.

So, what would you do, WILL you do, now given the opportunity?  Who would you reach out to?  How many people would you contact to make amends for things?  To heal old wounds?  To tie up loose strings?  To. Leave. No. Regrets.

How much tighter would you hold your loved ones tonight?  How many more “I-love-yous” would you whisper? How many “I-hate-yous” would you retract?

How many hours would you shave off your work day just to have dinner at the table tonight instead of on the couch?  How many battles with friends, siblings, coworkers, your children…would you concede just so that you can laugh one more time at a laffy taffy joke instead of yelling?

How many random strangers would you open doors for, give spare change to, take into your home, provide a warm meal, offer a smile, speak to as though they were actually human beings with lives and memories and histories written on their innermost inside walls that no one may ever know?

How many animals would you free from zoos, testing facilities, shelters, abusive homes?

How many foster children would you take in?  How many elderly would you offer to read to, sing to, brush their hair?

How many meetings would you miss just to see the last sunrise or sunset?  And how many colds would you risk to be able to run through the rain, fall down in the snow, sleep under the stars, or swim in the ocean…just…one…more…time?

How many ripples would you leave behind?

It’s not necessarily a bad thing that quite a huge chunk of us went to bed last night with just the teensiest bit of wonder about the fate of the world today.  But it’s even better if we wake up tomorrow with that same wonder.  And the day after that.  And the day after that.

So, maybe tonight…take stock of what’s really in your fall-out shelter.  It’s not all canned goods and Twinkies.   With apologies to Prince and gratitude to Tim McGraw, to survive the apocalypse of humankind, you gotta live like you were dying, not like it’s 1999.