A Long Winter’s Night 2016 – Day 6: The Best of Yourself
Posted By Randy on December 26, 2016
“Think of your death now. It is at arm’s length. It may tap you any moment, so really you have no time for crappy thoughts and moods. None of us have time for that. The only thing that counts is action, acting instead of talking.
“Our death is waiting and this very act we’re performing now may well be our last battle on earth. I call it a battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and since he has an intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the advantage a hunter has over his fellow men. A hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It’s only natural that his last act on earth should be the best of himself ….” ~ Master At Arms James A. Keating, Hermitage – The Power of Solitude
My Esteemed Friend Jim’s words remind me that the end of another calendar year approaches, bringing with it the annual expression of procrastination generally referred to as the “new year’s resolution”. A thing of which I once wrote:
“One may have grown dissatisfied with one’s appearance as it has changed over time, and become caught up in squandering time, thought, and treasure in a fruitless battle to recapture a fondly remembered moment of perfection, and hold it in stasis forever. A moment of perfection that never existed; for perfection, for each of us, is not a thing that existed once upon a time, but in the moment that is now, and if you can’t find it there, you won’t find it anywhere …
“All ‘new year’s resolutions’ will fail because they are born of procrastination, and those self-deluding sods who proclaim and embrace the concept trumpet their lack of resolve by the simple act of putting off all their life changing actions for one magical day. A magical day that, like tomorrow, never comes, because in the end there’s always another New Year, right?
“Wrong. Find the moment and your perfection in it.” ~ A Long Winter’s Night 2014 – Day 11: Perfection
You don’t get to pick when the fat lady sings, and so as with Jim’s hunter who, “… gives his last battle its due respect,” start treating your every act as your last, so it can Truly be said of you that your last act on earth was the best of yourself.
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