…Year 25.

The days are getting shorter. December 22nd is the darkest day of the year. From there, the days will increase in length by 3 min each day until glorious summer comes around once again. But for now, it is darkness that pervades the short days.

My dad told me that someone he knows was getting in his car with his wife in downtown Tacoma when he heard this odd sound, like nothing he’d heard before. He looked around and found a man lying motionless on the sidewalk. He quickly realized that the man had just jumped 11 stories from the roof of the apartment building. He found the man to have a faint pulse that quickly faded as the mans life slipped from this material world into another.

I do not tell you this story to make you sentimental or to upset your appetite. I tell you this story because you could have been standing behind that same man today at Starbucks. You could have passed that same man at the mall. He could have looked rich. He could have looked like he had no money at all. And that would have probably made a difference to you. It’s sad really. And what would you have done? Probably kept on walking, thinking about the last text message you read, or what is next on your list of things to purchase.

I realized today that at some point we have to ask ourselves what we want our life to be about. Perhaps it will take sitting down by yourself for five minutes and asking “Is the type of life I am living today what life is all about”.   If someone had taken my challenge yesterday, maybe that man wouldn’t have jumped. Who knows. Or maybe someone that you will interact with tomorrow will be in the same situation. You have to ask yourself, what do you want your life to be about.