We all basically have the same amount of time each day... 24 hours, 7 days each week, 30/31 days each month, 12 months/52 weeks each year, and if we are lucky (and/or blessed depending upon one's beliefs) have an opportunity to live to 80/90+ years of age. Our lives, does not really begin until we graduate from high school at 17/18 years of age and once that happens, we (as individuals) can build whatever life it is that we want to build with notable exceptions:
- handicaps,
- heredity,
- birth location,
- birth parents,
- birth wealth,
- birth diseases,
- family influence,
- community influence,
- and our own individual personalities
Other milestones in our life in addition to graduation from high school, might include:
- turning 21 years of age
- entering/graduating college
- entering/discharge from the military
- getting married
- having children
- awards and recognitions
- realizing our faith
- having to wear eye glasses
- major operations
- turning 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100
- having grandchildren
- retiring from our careers
One issue that we never expected to have happen is the realization that time passes by all of us equally and once we realize that we are closer to our death than we are to our birth, we all unmistakably and painfully realize how fast time has passed. And, the older we become the faster time seems to pass by. It is not that we fear death as much as it is that we fear the end of life as we know it. It is this end of life that terrifies us the most because we don't know what to expect... it is from that uncertainty that we grasp out to our faith as some sort of justification for having the opportunity to live such a brief life...
