Can you measure the life of a man when he dies? Can you define a man by what he leaves behind?
Some people just always leave a mess. I am guilty. My wife says I leave whatever I am doing at my feet. I can't argue. The measure of what I am doing has always been more important to me than than the mess it leaves behind. This may be my eternal flaw; that I never measured the weight of the mess I have left, but there is so much more to the heart than the evidence of it's life. As a people, we demand greatness so we judge very harshly what acceptable means to us. Each of our definitions are different. Some demand wealth and fame. Some demand notoriety. I demand sincerity.
I have hundreds of faults. Many so visible that one may define me to someone else. I have failed at so much in my life and struggle to be the person that I am supposed to be. But the one thing I do not believe I have lacked is sincerity. I go heart first into everything I desire. No one will say that I was fake. They will call me an idiot. They will call me inadequate. They will call me a waste of talent. They will call me a disappointment. Maybe only I will call me these things, but they will not call me insincere.
I think the measure of my life will be made by what is behind my actions sometimes. I believe that our success means a lot, but it doesn't mean everything. I may not be written about or spoken about as being talented or wise or accomplished. But if you ask my son or my daughter, I believe you will hear stories of me flipping them all around and laughing with them. I think if you asked my wife, you would find a woman that is full. This is the measure of a man. I think that life is really found in those trivial moments that most would call "wasting time." The moment you close your mother's eyes after she has died. The moment you have put your daughter's hand into the hand of her future husband. The moment you thank the guests who have come to your wife's funeral. The moment you hold your grandchildren above your head and look right into your past and remember how beautiful life can be and how wonderful it is to experience this beauty for the first time. The measure of a man is found in these little moments that fill everyone around you.
When you are a kid, you always want better for your life than you will eventually accomplish. The man at the end of the parade looks gravely different from the child at the start. It isn't due to failure. It's due to life. It's due to intervention. It's due to the effect of cause. We are who we end up. But that isn't all we are.
Life is not about accomplishments. Life is about the people you touch along the way.
Sing.
Migrate.
Thanks for reading...Z
