The end of the world is near according to all sorts of scientists. However, timing is so difficult for that one. The earth is believed to be around 4.5 billion years old. Humans, as we would recognize them, have been around for maybe 6,000 to 7,000 years. So "near" may be awhile.

What I'm trying to say is that all we really have is the here and now. There's no guarantee of the future. So don't wait, act now.

This month the History Channel debuted it's miniseries Life Without People. http://www.history.com/minisites/life_after_people/   In addition to this fine production, The History Channel has also aired, Doomsday 2012, The End of Days and The Universe (a long running and popular series).  These programs make "global warming" look like the least of our problems here on planet earth.

Although I rarely watch television, I do like the The History Channel. Programs like The History of Sex and Cities of the Underworld have always caught my attention. However this recent need to broadcast such gloomy information really speaks to me about how really precious one's life is. The History Channel has me convinced that all sorts of things that could happen that could create a people extension is nigh.

In addition to these types of programs, within the last six months a young friend of mine died of ovarian cancer. I watched her squander away her last two years on absolutely meaningless endeavors. She didn't know when she was going to go, but she knew it was sooner rather than later. I wish that she would have squezed more important things out of life, but maybe what she endevored had more importance to her than me.

I have a great example of someone that what capable of living in the NOW. I have lived overseas in three different countries and continents, but the biggest lessons that I ever received was that of living in Brazil. It is a country of serious poverty, real political corruption and painfully slow technical progression. People built "towns" or favellas up against public land with whatever they could pinch or drag out of a rubbish bin at a construction site. Raw sewage ran under these "towns", one extension cord would be be the electrical to power an entire row of thirty of more of these shacks. Children from the favellas could go into the main market and beg money for drugs or drink for their parents and try to get some scraps of food. I lived in a tiny city and taught English at a Sadia (much like Tyson Foods). I was particular to one little boy that would frequent a place where I would buy a bottle of diet coke (it was an ice cream shop). I would give him a couple of "Brazilian dollars" or reais Unidade Real de Valor, buy him an ice cream and he would watch whatever soccer game was on the telly for about 10 minutes, smile, laugh, clap and move on to the next shop. This little boy, no more than eight, lived for the moment. He enjoyed his moments. He also has some sort of physical deformity. He managed to take himself out of whatever circumstances and live in the moment that he was happy, regardless of whether or not he was beaten or abused in the favella.

Without me becoming too preaching, I would invite everyone to live life to the fullest in every way and in every day. Most of us don't live like my little Brazilian friend. In fact, anyone that can read this probably has nothing like his circumstances. Yet many of us cannot get out of our own circumstances and enjoy a football game with a bit of ice cream and live in the moment.

I would invite one to consider these things everyday when waking:

  • Be joyful. You have potable water! (Drinkable water-even in your toilet)
  • Loving people is more than just words. It's being grateful for them and appreciating them for who they are and allowing them to live a life that they chose.
  • No point in being critical of other people, circumstances or issues. If  it doesn't please you to go there in your mind....then DON'T.
  • Smiling is contagious, so spread that instead of the flu.
  • It is what I have not done that I regret. Leave not regrets in your life.
  • Don't wait around for circumstances to change.
  • Treat each moment and day with the ultimate respect.
  • Don't expect people to change your happiness. Be happy with whatever merger things you have. Because very easily, you could have less.
  • Be grateful for where you were born and the circumstances to it. I aways say that I am grateful that as a woman I can be educated the same as a man and work in the same profession. Honestly more than half of the world would not accept that.

The more happy and grateful one can be the more one can bring more of the same into one's life.