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Friday February 10 2006
"Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself."
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery -- French writer, author of "The Little Prince" 1943, "Terre des Hommes" 1939
This quote speaks to me and I can only hope that more days than not I take it to heart.
It is not simply enough to have lived, you must have a life?and that life must have value. Your life should have mattered. While some people argue that all life has value, I would argue that is our responsibility to make that a truth?not simply take it for granted. That value is not measured by money earned or anything so simple. However, it could be in something very simple and ordinary such as children fed by the bread you made or the people you drive to work in your bus.
One of the assignments I used to give my freshmen was to write their own obituary. While some people think this is a rather morbid exercise, it doesn?t have to be if you just think about it. One of my past jobs was writing obituaries and they can often be pretty wonderful tributes to people who lived their lives to the fullest and touched many people in a positive way. I often found them inspiring and could only hope that when it came time for some young reporter to write my obituary that mine could be just as inspiring.
And that was the reason that I gave the assignment to my students. I wanted them to be inspired and to visualize the life they wanted to live. I would often write my own mock obituary to use as an example for the students and I make up quotes for them to eulogize and with the quotes I would give a little biographical snippet ( Former student Dave Smith, who just flew in from his latest art show in Paris?).
I hoped that inspiration would not only lead them to pursue their dreams but also to see how they could help others achieve theirs as well.
Try it yourself some time, test drive your own obituary and see what you think of it. Are you happy with your mark on the world? After all, by the time the real thing gets printed it will be too late to change anything!
Copyright 2004 Dawggone Communications