Over this last weekend I watched the movie 50/50, starring Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I won’t give away too much about the film except to say that it can be a tear jerker, but the general idea is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been diagnosed with a cancer that has a 50/50 survival rating. The movie traces his struggle with that news along with how the people around him react.
The movie, however, just barely touched on a point that I think would have made a good movie into a truly great movie. See, the fact is, every day we all have a 50/50 chance of survival. We’ll either make it or we won’t. You might think that’s overstating it, but truly, life is that fragile and that unpredictable. You’ll either wake up or you won’t. You’ll be able to go to bed comfortably or you won’t. The same holds true for your friends, your family – every one you see.
Given that, we should be far more grateful when we wake up every day, don’t you think? And given that, we should be far more grateful when we crawl into bed. We made it through another day. We were lucky.
In the movie, Adam, the main character, contemplates things he’s never done. I’m thinking when we wake up, our first thoughts should be things we want to accomplish today, and it shouldn’t all be work or tasks. “I want to spend some time reading outside.” “I want to spend some time just lying on my back listening to the locusts and tree frogs and crickets that have all started their late summer songs.” And just before we go to sleep, I think we should take a step back and see what we can be grateful for, apart from the fact that we made it through another day. Does everyone we love know we love them? Have burnt bridges been rebuilt? Have we said something that needed to be said? Did we enjoy our lives, even if it was a poopy day?
Every day, our chances are 50/50. It’s like the comedians say – life is a sexually transmitted disease for which there is no cure. At some point, our roads will end. Isn’t it great that our roads haven’t ended yet? We have a whole day stretching out before us when we wake up. A day full of opportunities, time, chances, and who knows what else. And when we get ready to sleep, we can reflect on all of that and think, “Geeze, what a miracle.” We can do all of that, but I’m not sure we really do. I don’t, not enough.
Your chances are 50/50. What are you going to do about it?
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dalcrose/6362529113/ via Creative Commons