Opportunities Lost
Recently, I was reading a thread on a forum I participate in and came across one particular post from a user. He was having a bad week and expressed the feeling that it would likely get worse. His brother had committed suicide a week prior. In a post he made following the services, he urged us all to go find someone we care about, give them a hug and tell them we care.
That post started me thinking. This can be difficult for some of us. Many of us are not as expressive as we should be with the people we do care about. It is unfortunate but some people, and I admit am one of those, tend to think “These people know I care about them, why should I remind them.” It is a reasonable assumption but in 20 years (maybe more, maybe less), you will be wondering, “Why didn’t I say more to them?” Mark Twain once remarked that in twenty years you will regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did – the same is true for what we say. As much as we may regret what we say, steps can be taken to recover from it. We can never recover from what we didn’t say. We never know how much time we will have with the people around us and as Dr. Soran says in Star Trek: Generations, “We leave so many things unfinished in our lives.” Never let your relationships be one of them.
In his book Billions and Billions Carl Sagan writes of a framed postcard he kept on his shaving mirror from a William John Rogers to a Mr. James Day. On the postcard is a color picture of a four-funneled ocean liner captioned, “White Star Liner Titanic.” The postmark on the card is the day before the ship sank with the loss of 1500 lives, including the life of the sender. The short message on the note reads,
“Just a line to show that I am alive & kicking, and going grand. It’s a treat.”
So here from me to you is a line to remind you I am alive and kicking, and things are grand. I hope those who I consider friends will reciprocate. To all of you however, I forward my acquaintances’ find someone you care about, give them a hug, and tell them you care about them. It may be awkward now but in time you will feel better.
