A precious gift: Making the most of life | GARY COSBY JR.

We have just completed week one of 2024. Already, some people have experienced joy, while others have experienced tragedy. Such is the nature of life.

A recent USA Today story based on population data from the Census Bureau says that every day, a person will die every 9.5 seconds while a person is born every nine seconds. That is simply staggering when you stop to think about it. Six times every minute of every day in America, someone is born and someone dies.

Having been in the room for the birth of my children and feeling the joy of that new life coming into the world, I can’t think of an emotional high better than that. Having experienced the death of one of my children, I can say unequivocally, there is no pain to rival that. Losing anyone you love is difficult, but it never stops happening. Day in and day out, the cycle of life and death is happening all around us.

I was scrolling through Instagram recently and saw an interview with the scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He has some interesting takes on life and one of them struck me forcefully because it is something I have tried to teach my children and others with whom I have had some influence.

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Tyson said, “Most humans who could ever exist never will. The fact that you exist at all is against stupefying odds of who gets born and who does not. Any moment you spend squandering those moments you are alive does disrespect to all those who will never be born.”

Tyson said that being born is winning the lottery of life no matter what conditions you are born into or have to deal with in this life. Sometimes, often actually, life is hard. Sometimes it is brutally hard. I mean, life and death, joy and sorrow, health and sickness, marriage and divorce. Life is full of opposites that seem to be constantly battling for supremacy in our lives.

I don’t always agree with Tyson on his philosophical ideas, but he is eloquent in expressing them. I am Christian while I believe Tyson is either agnostic or atheistic, so we won’t always see exactly eye-to-eye, but in this case, I am in full agreement.

The Bible actually has a verse in Colossians 3 that says, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” and another in Ecclesiastes 9 that says “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”

We have this life. It is a precious gift and we are, depending on your point of view, either the lucky ones or the chosen ones to be here, to be alive, to have this chance at life. That is not to say that to be relevant each of us needs to be remembered in a history book for some accomplishment, but it is an encouragement not to waste the time we have been given.

One of my sons plays a lot of video games. I hate the things because they are the biggest waste of time I can imagine. My son has a different perspective because he connects with his friends that way. I’m a bit old-fashioned, I suppose because I connected with my friends by playing with them outside when we were kids then going and doing things together when we were older. Nevertheless, I encourage my son to put down the game controller and go do something memorable. I hate to see anyone waste this opportunity.

I think of another scientist sometimes when I feel a little down. Stephen Hawking often comes to mind in those situations. Perhaps you have seen photos of Hawking. He developed the disease known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It slowly robbed him of all motor skills and his ability to speak with his own voice. Hawking never gave in, never gave up. He kept working with his brain from inside a paralyzed body and never stopped adding to the knowledge of man right up until his death in 2018.

My wife and I sometimes have discussions about aging. As we have grown older, our bodies just don’t do right. Each time, though, one of us looks at the other and says, “You know, it could always be worse.” It could and it is nice to be in such good physical condition at this point in life. It makes me very thankful to be in the place I am.

There is an old question designed to make us think about our lives. What do you want on your headstone? It’s a good thing to consider. When we reach the end of this life, what do we wish to leave as a legacy? We can and should ask this question of ourselves frequently, but the start of a new year is an excellent time to consider it. I think the author Stephen Covey wrote it this way, “begin with the end in mind.”

Happy New Year to everyone and my your time on earth this year be well spent.

Gary Cosby Jr. can be contacted at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: If you are alive, you have already won | GARY COSBY JR.