Thought For The Day - 10.22.08

“I think somehow we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.” …Eleanor Roosevelt  

The Decent Drapery of Life

The nation's political contests are (finally) entering the home stretch.

That means the candidates who are out of office - Democrats in some races, Republicans in others - are raising the age-old question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

When politicians pose this question, we know they are asking us to do a quick economic calculation. Is your salary higher? Is your home worth more? Is your 401(k) rising in value?

Given the bruised condition of the U.S. economy, housing market and stock market, millions of Americans could be forgiven for responding with an emphatic "no" - and perhaps a few overripe tomatoes.

Politics aside, though, there is a problem with turning this "better-off" question into a monetary equation. It neglects what Edmund Burke called "the decent drapery of life."

You may not be earning more than you were four years ago. Your home or your stock portfolio may be worth less. But is that really how we determine whether we are better off?

Maybe you fell in love over the last four years. Maybe you took up fly-fishing. Maybe you moved to an exciting new city. (I did.) Maybe you spent the last four years honoring your profession, learning more about it, helping more people than ever before.

Economic statistics are fine as far as they go. But they don't go far in measuring a life well lived.

Life can't just be about the grim determination to get and have more. As President Calvin Coolidge said, "No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."

Peggy Noonan agrees. "In a way, the world is a great liar," she writes. "It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That's what it really admires. That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, 'The thing about Joe was that he was rich.' We say, if we can, 'The thing about Joe was he took care of people.'"

It doesn't hurt to remember this. Because the one undeniable fact about the last four years is that you now have four less of them left.

So maybe the important thing is not to make more, have more, or spend more. Maybe the important thing is to slow down and appreciate small things, ordinary things: The first frost. The town clock. The curl on your grandson's forehead.

At 79, my Dad has suddenly become an avid birder. What a surprise. When I was growing up, his free time was all about golfing, coaching Little League games or watching major league sports. He didn't own a pair of binoculars. And he certainly couldn't tell you the difference between a tufted titmouse and a yellow-bellied sapsucker.

When we're young, of course, we're going to live forever. There isn't time to notice things. We have places to go. Things to do.

"We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well," wrote Paul Bowles near the end of his life. "Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five time more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty."

Rushing from one appointment to the next, we use up our time, putting off the non-urgent, the unessential.

But in the second half - and no one knows when we reach that point exactly - life takes on a special poignancy precisely because our time is limited. It becomes richer and more meaningful because of it.

It becomes more important than ever to spend time with the people we love, to create those opportunities - and to savor them.

Are you better off than you were four years ago? Only you can determine what the question even means. But the answer shouldn't require a calculator.

"Enjoy life, it's ungrateful not to," Ronald Reagan once remarked.

They understand this in Scotland. When I lived in St. Andrews several years ago, the locals would often clink my glass, give me a wink, and announce in that distinct Scottish brogue:

"Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead."

Carpe Diem, Alex Green, Spiritual Wealth

“Perhaps something to consider as we vote and in considering for whom we are voting… Who is the better man (or woman)?  Who has lived the bigger and more rounded life; a decent life?  Who has given the most?  Who has the experience to understand and empathize with more of us… for it is far from just the money or economics that makes America who she is and us ‘who we are’!