Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying
Download Link Thomas Newman - Shawshank Redemption
Life won’t wait. It never does. Just yesterday I strolled into Round Rock One on Dell Way and began my first career, my first venture into what has been popularly dubbed “adulthood.”
I wore khakis, crisp and clean, a collared shirt and wing tips–my new tattoo hidden beneath layers of cotton in fear of occupational repercussion. Naivete in its purest form. I did not know exactly what to expect…the whole situation was so new and overwhelming. After the obligatory herding and the makings of I.D.’s they sent us into a large room with a horseshoe of tables. This would be the first battlefield of my career–sitting amongst future friends and competition.
And life won’t wait. Have I really been there three months?
Yet, this entry isn’t about my job. I can reach deeper into my past and scrape memories of Friday Night Lights and first loves and humbly arrive at the same thought: Where does it all go? I am the amalgamation of a million moments and a million more still to come. The past blends together forming the sea of my persona and the future…so ambiguous and daunting…is slowly melting away. Time is expiring. I am expiring. There isn’t much future left.
My father and I were talking once in only the way a father and son can…sitting outside looking upon the great fields beyond our home. Maybe there was beer, maybe a cigarette…I do not remember. But I do remember our words. We talked about life and how fast we lose it, about regret and anticipation, and the nature of our short-lived existence. The whole scene could have been lifted from an American novel. His message was clear and concise: He told me to live. Just to live. It seems so simple, but he meant so much more.
In those few words he told me to love, to hate, to fear, to conquer…to be free, to resist, to help, to cherish, to…to…to… His words are eternal and infinite, although sadly we are not.
I used to be so self-centered, and in many ways I still am. My vehement individualism bred contempt and anguish…and fear. I viewed everything as a threat. Paranoia is the theme. But at some arbitrary point I grew. I grew out of the shell of my own universe and began to simply live. I guess this is a human story. I know my time is short and I have committed so many sins thus far…against my Creator, against my enemies, and sadly against those I care about most. Redemption is a wonderful thing. And it is everywhere. I’ve realized how fleeting it all is, and how trite and pointless life can be spent being anything but happy and fulfilled. Life won’t wait, believe me. The words of my father now echo in everything I do: just live.
Get busy living or get busy dying…That’s god damn right.
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