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Appreciating The Gift
Why we should stop taking life for granted
A few weeks ago a man came to repair the boiler in the flat I’m renting in Britain’s most picturesque city. As he worked, he told me about the various aches and pains he has to live with, his poor digestion, poor sleeping patterns, and his increasing forgetfulness. When he finished working on the boiler he turned to me and said, “I expect you’ve got all that to look forward to, in a few years, once you’re my age.”
In fact, he was twelve years younger than me. The difference between us was the sum of the lifestyle choices we each have made. His were made by default, simply doing what those around him were doing, with no thought regarding their results. Mine have been made by choice because I treasure the astonishing gift of life.
None of us did anything to merit our existence. Each human being who’s ever lived has been the chance combination of genes arising from a particular sperm fusing with a particular egg. A conception one month earlier or later would have created an entirely different person, as would have happened if a different sperm had fused with that same egg.
We are, every single one of us, the products of chance. For the span of a few brief years we get to exist and experience the world into which we were born. For far too many people, life is…
