Live life as hard as you can.

Because you might die tomorrow.

I was reminded about mortality yesterday when I went to visit my grandfather, who is in hospital. I don't really want to discuss the details, so I will just focus on the effect that it had on me.

I wound up thinking about the baggage that we carry around with us, both emotionally, and physically. Now, we can't take any of the physical stuff with us when we die. If we accumulate a mass of it and fail to dispose of it, we leave it behind to other people (generally loved ones), who then have to find some way of disposing of it. Is that not just a little selfish? I believe that collecting stuff is habit forming, and I know that I am a prime example of a person who tends to store a lot of stuff. So now, I have resolved to keep a sharp check on the stuff that I hang on to.

The second part of this is emotional baggage. Why is it that some people have this amazing ability to cling on to events and hurts that happened many many years ago? I personally know that this leads to the person becoming bitter (I think I was a bitter person, until I let go of those things). It makes me incredibly sad when I see bitterness, lies and unhappiness - all a result of "stuff", which hasn't been dealt with.

My concluding thoughts were that I should try and live life "as hard as you can". The saying comes from a paddling team I was once on. Our name was "Co-captain Soekie and the Hard As You Cans". We certainly did. So here's to trying as hard as I can.