Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/mostimportantday.mp3 or read on…
9/11/2001 and 9/11/2011 may be dates that frame
this entire generation’s view of itself.
It is to be expected.
Each generation frames itself with joys and tragedies.
Take tragedies:
I was born 9/6/41, just three months before Pearl Harbor. In my generation, everybody knew what “Pearl Harbor” meant. It was shorthand for, the U.S. was surprisingly attacked by a foreign enemy without direct provocation, and many, many people died in the process. Just say “Pearl Harbor” to my generation and they’ll know you mean the beginning day of World War II, during which millions upon millions of people’s lives were yanked from them.
In the next generation, just mention 11-22-63 and everybody whose lives were affected will know what your shorthand means. Our great hope of a president, John F. Kennedy, had his life yanked from him, and many, many people still mourn his death and the loss of his idealism…and in turn the resultant loss of their own idealism.
Jump forward to 9/11/2001 and all you have to say to this generation is “9/ll” and you’ll receive a grimace, a turned-away glance, a momentary darkness of expression, and a feeling of helplessness not unlike the helplessness other generations feel, thinking about their own unexplained tragedies, both present and past.
Take joys:
I said above that each generation bookends itself with landmark tragedies and joys. Where’s the joy, where are the joys?
Well, we have to pick the joys that outbalance the tragedies, focus on them for all we’re worth, and try to convince the next generation that things might be better, if only…
If only.
WWII’s joys came when the war was clearly ended and the soldiers brought home.
JFK’s joys came when new leaders and a new kind of music rose to re-paint the world with fresh hope.
9/11’s generation must find its own joys to offset the horrors.
Here’s one joy, my gift to you:
Today, 9/13, is the day you take hold of life and decide to live it out in service to love and loved ones, making sure you include most everybody worth loving in your definition of “loved ones.”
Tomorrow, 9/14, is the day after, the second day you decide to rail against evil and live your life as if you matter—for indeed you do.
Thursday, 9/15/11, is the next day that matters. And so on.
Keep looking for the joys, don’t allow tragedy to quench your thirst for harmony and compassion, and don’t let one day pass without repeating this mantra.
It’s all up to you now
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed