It happens every 12 months Published Jan. 3, 2013 By Chaplain (Maj.) Douglas A. Collins 94th Airlift Wing Chaplain Office DOBBINS AIR RESERVE BASE, Ga. -- It happens every 12 months, a New Year is christened. It can be just another day, turning of a calendar or it could be the start of something that will make all the rest of the years different. Before you quit reading and think that this is just another article about setting resolutions, please bear with me a few more moments. What is lost so many times in our life is not that we don't live, or that we do not have much to be thankful for in our lives. The thing that is lost is that we begin to take for granted the things that are special to us. In a year, we will say to many that we love them or that we consider them to be our good friends, however, when we look at our schedule, we let the other distractions of life take us away from these very people and places that we say we value so much. It is not that we want to, it is the fact that so many times we replace the extraordinary with the ordinary day to day hassles and grind. The worst thing we can do at this time of the New Year is to look back and say honestly to ourselves that we did not spend enough time investing ourselves into the things that we say we value most. A few years ago Tim McGraw had a song called, "Live like you were dying." In the song, he sings of the things that a person says that he has done since finding out he was dying. The sad part for me about that song is that it took the person hearing that he only had a short time to live to go out and do the things that he should have been doing all along. I have some news that you may not want to think about but it is true, "We are all dying!" That may seem basic, but it is a truth that most of us want to forget. It is not said to make you feel sad, it is said to remind you to not wait to tell those in your life that you love them. Why wait to do the things that you have always wanted to do? Life is short, and I believe that you were each born with a purpose in life. You are not a mistake who drifts through day to day, just getting by in this world. So as the New Year arrives, start living! You may need to make some promises to yourself and to those in your life that you will be really living this year and they will see where you put your priorities. Life is too short, and it is too valuable a gift to not live like you were dying! Now go live!!!
