Three Days to See

All of us have read exciting stories in which the heroes had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year, sometimes as short as 24 hours. Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What associations should we crowd into those last hours? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, and what regrets? Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor and appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. Most of us take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are healthy, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out endlessly. So we go about our unimportant tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude towards life. The same attitude characterizes the use of our faculties and senses. Only the deaf appreciate hearing; only the blind realize the happiness that lies in sight. Particularly this observation applies to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life. But those who have never suffered loss of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these faculties and senses. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill.