to live is Christ, to die is gain.

I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
- Achilles

i don't mean to take this quote literally... because to do so would be to say that greek gods exist, or to say that God envies us for our mortality. rather, i intend to say that the figurative dying to self is such a beautiful thing. us with our human, mortal tendencies are so flawed in every which way, which makes the choosing of the life of Christ all the more... lovely.

however, it's not all that easy.. obviously. to live the way the way of Christ is to suffer beyond compare, but with eternal benefits in God. even trying to figure out why this is so or why God is so loving is but a confounding factor to me. He is but far too loving and far too understanding for me to comprehend... and that is the beauty of God.

now, i mean to kind of take this quote literally. only in the second half mostly.

it kind of vocalizes the same opinion as the phrase "carpe diem." to live life to the fullest. now, the Achilles' quote only rings true if one were to literally carpe diem their life by virtue. however, here we are spending our days away doing absolutely nothing. getting nothing productive done. granted, there are times for that, but i really wish for this quote to be true in our lives.

the truth IS that any moment may be our last. the truth is that you never know if you maybe hit with a random disease, get hit by a car, get your plane hijacked, murdered by a cold-blooded serial killer, or die because your time is just up. i know that these scenarios aren't exactly the best scenarios to list out, but really anything can happen to our lives, our body parts, mental functioning, or family dysfunction. so with any function left in your life, live that out, squeeze to the pulp and leave no juice behind. "if life gives you lemons, make lemon juice..." or something like that. sieze your every day. and i really need to live by this, not in the secular sense but in the sense that the Lord will be pleased by what i do. that i would chose Him above all the other stupid things in this world, because really.. He is infinity times infinity to the infinity power better than anything this world can offer.

i think many of those either reading this or those in which i intend on writing this for... we really are in the primetimes of our lives. this is where are bodies, our minds, maybe not our spiritual lives.. but the first two.. it's where they are at their peak! this is most definitely one of the climaxes of our lives in many senses, so who are we to do such miniscule things. who are others to underestimate our beings. we were made for so many purposes in our lives, let's live them out!

and just to break apart the last sentence of Achilles' quote. we are here only once in this world (unless you believe otherwise), so there are no other chances with every passing day. the previous days we could've done this or that... but instead of lying in regret about the past, just sieze the days you have now and which are coming so you will never regret the passing days again. our life is limited, our days are numbered. if we were to break apart our lives into any way and add it up again.. it's only going to equal one. that's one chance you have for every year, month, minute, second and it's all precious.

i know that the life i'm currently living is actually digressing from the true path i need to follow, however, i don't take any day as a regret, because instead of going all the way through the path not having any experience i feel would be most meaningless. i feel that to take this path is but to first gain much life experience, then move forward. i rushed a lot of things, but at this etching moment, i know that i'm going to go in full and ready.

-ajc