ONLY ONE BEST RESPONSE

Four terminally ill patients met for coffee each week and agreed to support each other on their sad journey toward that dreaded inevitable day.

One morning their conversation turned to how they were each dealing with their fate.

The first patient spoke and said, I have decided to live life to the fullest and to experience everything I can because my time is so short. The second patient broke down and cried, saying, "We are all doomed. There is no hope for any of us." In response the third patient said, "Yes, this is so unfair, I did nothing to deserve this disease. God must be playing some sick joke on us all."

The forth patient, seemingly unmoved by the conversation picked up the newspaper on a nearby table and began looking in the want ads - for a job.

"How can you read the news paper at a time like this," asked the first patient? "Are you reading the ads for employment," the second patient questioned in astonishment? "Who do you think would hire you in your condition?," asked the third friend.

The fourth patient looked up with a smile and simply said, "I am helping my daughter look for a job."

The fact is, we are all terminally ill in one way or another. The death toll on this planet, so far as we know, is 100%. We are all going to die.

There is nothing redeeming or helpful in living life to the fullest simply that we might grab all the goodness of life for our own enjoyment. Second, there is no sense in becoming paralyzed by the fear of that inevitable day. And, lastly, there is nothing helpful in blaming others (or maligning God) for one's unfortunate end. Even if our death were a sadistic joke being played on us by some horrible demon, railing against its injustice cannot alter one's fate, and living with a sense of entitlement is neither wise nor accurate. No one is entitled to life. Our lives have been given to us as a gift. We did nothing to earn life and we can do nothing to prevent its eventual end. We have no demands upon life. Gratitude, not grasping, is, therefore, a much better angle from which to approach this wonderful thing we call life.

The only logical course of action in a world such as ours is to help the one's we love while we still have the time, because we may not have that opportunity for long. Helping others creates a better legacy than does despair, focusing on our ultimate peril, lamenting over the hopelessness of our situation, or blaming another for the injustices of this life. None of those lesser responses has any power to change the world, and their results are empty. Only in helping others along our short journey in life can we extend the good powers of our life into the future. Only this will change the way the world IS to the way it MIGHT BE. Possessing the opportunity to do good is a very great privilege and a very great power.

Those who say all beliefs are equal, that all responses have the same value; those who believe that looking out for one's own best interests is best path have simply not thought clearly enough about their premises. Even if our helping of others never reaches above the level of our own enlightened self-interest, our altruism can still improve this world in ways not possible without us, and that is better than the responses of the first three terminally ill patients. The questions I am faced with is, what will I do with the time I have left? Which terminally ill patient am I?