Stick Around.......Please!!

Stick Around…..Please!! What do I mean by that? I mean life is interesting, unpredictable, challenging, fun, irritating, loving, mean-spirited, crazy, complicated and exhilarating. But more than anything else it’s fleeting. We always think we have more time than we do, we don’t grasp the importance of the fact that the universal clock never stops, and we all have a rendezvous with our time running out. I’ve told my friends this: the line that made such a important difference in my life was in the movie “Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy is captured by the Wicked Witch of the West, and she wants those damn ruby slippers but she can’t get them off Dorothy’s feet. She goes to this big hour glass filled with red sand, and she tells Dorothy that she only has the amount of time to live that is in the sand going through the hourglass, “And it isn’t much my pretty”, “it isn’t much”.

I realized: that’s it exactly; when we are born we have an hourglass of sand but only so much sand and at our birth the hourglass is turned over and the sand begins to drop down. “And it isn’t much my pretty, it isn't much”. For my brother Dennis it was 7 yrs worth of sand, for my friend Mike it’s been 93 + years of sand and counting. For my mother 64 yrs 10 months of sand and for the first love of my life (only had 2) it was 20 years 2 months and 30 days. The point is we don’t know how much sand is in our hourglass but what we all know is that once we come into this world, the hourglass is turned over and the sand begins to runs, and continues with no stopping.

Is that is? NO it isn’t. How we live our life affects the speed of the flow of sand. Take good care of yourself and the flow slows down. You can get more time for your sand to drop than say Charlie Sheen who chooses to live a debauched life but at the cost of speeding up his flow of sand. While we can’t stop the sand from flowing, we have some control (albeit not enough) over how fast it flows. So here is the equation that matters:

None of us should worry about how much sand is in hourglass. God or the universe or sheer chance determines that. Excessive worry about how much sand we have only speeds up the flow and makes less the time you do have. Each person has to determine the appropriate level of sand flow that works for them. If you want to live a supremely safe, careful life with no fun or excitement, no pizza, hot dogs, ice cream or a late night out with the fellas or a lover on New Years Eve, well you’ll get more time but how interesting is the extra time you get? Others race through their sand foolishly it seems to me; I say Charlie Sheen but what about Elvis, Michael Jackson, Kevin Caminiti or Steve Howe? And we all know of someone that has abused themselves and thus has made whatever sand they have disappear faster. That's not good either.

I understand the dilemma. There are those that live wonderful healthy, happy, balanced lives and yet drop over or are taken in an illness or accident at a young age. So we think what is that about? We think, so what’s the point of taking care of you when you might go tomorrow? But consider the Mickey Mantle story. A hall of fame baseball player who freely admitted he never expected to live past 45 because his dad and a brother etc. all died of an illness by 45. Not expecting to live, he became a raging alcoholic and self abuser. Well, guess what? He lived until his late 50’s and would have continued to live except for the damage to his liver from drinking and over all self abuse which probably cost him 10 years or more. Near the end of his life he stated that had he knew he would live past 45 he would have taken care of himself.

Here is what we can do:

Eat well, sleep well, exercise, have as positive a viewpoint as you can, worry as little about your past life as your life allows, apologize for wrongdoings but don’t live in the darkness of regret and guilt, help others, romance always helps if you are lucky, believe in someone or something, and laugh as much as you can. Get all the time you can with the sand you have in your hourglass, don’t speed up the flow. Don’t make the end come one second before it has to. You are needed here, you are wanted here, and when you go it will be all too soon for you and those you leave behind. TRUST ME it will be. Do not underestimate your importance! You have more to offer than you realize so I say it again…do what you have to do and stick around. PLease