One of my favorite moments in one of my favorite shows is the speech that Coach Taylor gives after Jason Street was injured in Friday Night Lights:
“Give all of us gathered here tonight the strength to remember that life is so very fragile.
We are all vulnerable, and we will all, at some point in our lives, fall.
We will all fall.
We must carry this in our hearts, that what we have is special.
That it can be taken from us, and when it is taken from us, we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls.
We will now all be tested. It is these times, it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.”
Friday Night Lights
Most of us are able to live day to day in peace, security, comfort, and ease. We have things that are stressing us out, things that could be better, but for the most part, our problems only feel big. We realize this when we are truly tested.
When a friend gets sick and doesn’t get better. When you say your last goodbye to a parent. When you have to rush to the hospital for yourself, for your spouse, for your child.
It is within these moments that we are reminded of how precious life is and how small our day to day problems truly are. Eventually, these moments pass and we find a way to put life back together again, never the same but much more normal. And once again we can start to feel like the stress of a job or the bad weather is a good reason to feel anxious or stressed or ungrateful.
To live the good life, we must remind ourselves of how fleeting life itself is. How easily order can collapse into chaos, how quickly life can give way to death. Our time is short and we will all be tested, so seize the life you have and remember how precious it is.
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