The difficulty is to reach the point of recognising that all we have done and can do is nothing … (but) … you could not stop trying in the right way and for the right reason until you had tried your very hardest.
Mere Christianity – C. S. Lewis (1952)
Lewis is primarily talking here about the giving of your life to God and trusting him to lead you through, especially in the difficult times, but with the removal of the religious aspect this, to me still makes a lot of sense regarding life in general.
There has always been a lot of discussions bantered around about death, and the things that are left behind in the mortal life, the impact that life had on history and the way in which a person is remembered. The legacies that people leave to this world for future generations, the milestone breakthroughs in science, medicine, art, music etc. but I suppose the biggest for a lot of people is the family they have brought into the world which secures the next generation on the ancestry tree. However, although the big things have huge importance there are many little things just as meaningful, al-be-it on a much more contained scale, that everyone could lay claim to, if only they knew they had done them.
I wonder sometimes if all the teachers that inspired me every really knew the true worth, or the people that encouraged me (and the ones that stood in opposition), or the strangers that somehow influenced my life. I am forever grateful to my nanna for painstakingly teaching me to sew and knit, she will never know the amount of fun I have making toys or the amount of money they raise for charity. There are too many other people that I admire for the part they played in my life.
There are two dates to everyone’s life … but what matters most is what you do along the dash between them.