GRATIFICATION

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #345

 So here is a BIG question for you: What is the most important thing in life? In my view it is not fame, fortune, prestige, business success or even love. Instead it is gratification: knowing that the world is a somewhat better place because you spent your number of years here. (Of course, we can get gratification from all of those other things, and more.) In addition, I believe that one thing that has truly separated me from most people who have ever walked the face of the earth is that, as best as I recall, when I was still in high school I realized that probably one of the worst things in life is to be on your death bed and look back over your life thinking “I wish I would have, or I wish I had not have.” And I have not let that happen to me. In other words, I certainly have made my mistakes, but I believe that I have taken advantage of my many opportunities in life to make this world a somewhat better place, and I have received a fair amount of gratification for what I have been able to do. Do you feel the same way?

We are so thoroughly blessed to live where, when and how we do. And for many people like me, it was simply the luck of the draw. Many people have suffered great hardships to be able to live in these United States, but I was born to it. Or, as I put it, the best decision I ever made in my life was choosing my parents. Of course, I have been the beneficiary of that so-called choice ever since, but I believe that it has given me at least a moral obligation to help those who did not “choose” quite so well. But regardless of anyone’s station in life, we always have the opportunity of contributing to the benefit of our fellow human beings, and getting righteous gratification from those contributions. And if that is what you are doing, savor in the gratification that it gives you – because you deserve it!

Story for the week: My wonderful mother spent her freshman year at Occidental College, and then transferred to Cal Berkeley where she graduated three years later. But through her entire life, she always rebelled at the term “oxymoron.” (Actually that’s not true, but it makes a good story. . .)