You Only Live Once...that's what they say.
My life began on March 12, 1945. Its still going...obviously.
70 years, 9 months and some-odd days.
With some luck and continued good health, my life could keep going for...well, who knows.
According to the YOLO principle, this is the only life I get. The one I have been living since I arrived on the earthly scene at Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana...all those years ago.
BTW: On that Monday when I arrived on the scene this is how things were...
F.D.R was President...serving in his fourth term;
"The House of Fear," "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," and "Objective, Burma" were playing in movie houses.
The Tigers would beat the Cubs in the World Series later that year, 4-3; and in the Negro World Series the Cleveland Buckeyes would sweep the Homestead Grays, 4-0.
In college football, Army was declared the National Champion.
The Rams (then in Cleveland) beat the Redskins in the NFL Championship.
And the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons beat the Sheboygan Redskins to win the National Basketball League Championship.
Gas cost 15 cents per gallon.
The average new house in America cost $4,600; and the average wage was about half that much ($2,400).
The average price for a brand new car (if you could find one) was barely north of one-thousand dollars.
Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on the day I was born to John and Patricia Steele of Lydick, Indiana.
But. But I don't really agree with YOLO.
I think we all live many lives. Consecutive lives. Each one of those lives we live requires different skills, emotions, and energies. Each of them can build on the experiences of the ones that have gone before.
I made it thru my childhood life. I learned to make friends. Thought small town mid-western life in America was the only and best life to live. Went to elementary, middle, and high school in the insular towns of Lydick and New Carlisle. Had developed few if any plans for the lives that would follow.
My next life began with marriage, the soon-arrival of twin boys, and a move across the country to Los Angeles, California. All within the span of about nine or ten months! I landed my first "real" job, at the National Screw and Manufacturing Company (which company I have now outlived!).
Next came the return-to-Indiana life...beginning in the late summer of 1968. We settled in the Indianapolis area. Another boy-child arrived. Higher education began in earnest. Various work experiences...from cleaning out 55-gallon drums to be reused for tomato paste, to supervising the cleaning of office buildings, to managing the inventory of HVAC units, to driving a Charles Chips truck...and then the final two years of college and three years of seminary while serving as an associate pastor of one church and full-time pastor of another church.
There are other lives, too. Some of them overlap one another; others occur in succession.
The professional religious-person life that lasted 41 years.
Life with good health.
Life with declining health.
Life lived paycheck-to-paycheck.
Life lived with relative financial security.
Divorced life.
Remarried life.
Retirement life.
That's how I see it. We do live way more times than just once. And each one of those lives brings new joys (and sorrows), new opportunities (and set-backs), and requires new skills and adaptations. Each life requires the setting of new goals...and plans for achieving those goals.
Maybe...quite literally...Today is the first day of Your Next Life.
Maybe.
