Three Days To See

 

THREE DAYS TO SEE

Sometimes, I have thought that it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize the values of life sharply. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which is often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of ‘’eat, drink, and be merry’’ but most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.

Perhaps I can best illustrate by imagining what I should most like to see if I were given the use of my eyes, say, for just three days.

On the first day

                            I should want to see the people whose kindness, gentleness, and companionship have made my life worth living.

The second day of sight

                                        I should arise with the dawn and see the thrilling miracle by which night is transformed into day. How can so much be compressed into one day? Through the museums, of course?

In the last day

                         I shall spend in the workaday world of the present, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life.

If I were the president of a university, I would establish a compulsory course called ‘’How to Use Your Eyes. The professor would try to show his pupils how they could add joy to their lives by really seeing what passes unnoticed before them. He would try to awaken their dormant and sluggish faculties.