Closing Time

Health concerns, like all concerns, end at closing time.

————

Few things are as inevitable as closing time. Lives, films, Empires, and everything else comes to an end. "Last call for alcohol" is the classic example. Boasts, clever talk, and hopeful lusts revert to pathos when the barroom lights come on - it's closing time.

"Yeah, I guess, maybe, but I have a lot of fun in bars".

Many say the same. I don't.

I've never cared for bars. American bars are damp, dark, cold, crowded, and way too loud. I might like an English pub, if I were ever in one. Probably not. I'm not gregarious. Long hours of pointless drunken blabbing does not appeal to me. I prefer to drink moderately and alone while doing something worth doing.

Time to do something worth doing is limited.

The example of closing time is easy to understand. Whatever barroom need or hope you have has to get done before closing time. Life has its own closing time. Keeping that limitation in mind focuses attention on what really needs doing.

What is worth doing, really?

Most people don't think about that question until they lie dying. How different would their life have been if they'd asked that question when young enough to do something about the answer?

It’s strange that fundamental questions are so often dismissed as useless intellectual philosophizing when in reality, questions of what and why are the best guide to what you should do, and what you shouldn't do.

Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. Few took it to heart. Too bad.

Life runs hot with distracting temptations, desperate dreams and impossible ambitions, each competing with the other. Who? What" When? The pace is relentless, the possibilities confusing. Should this be done first, or never done. It's hard to be sure which pressing business is most important. There's so much to do. Everything is urgent.

Wouldn't it be easier if you had already decided what really needs doing in life?

"Maybe I'll think about what really needs doing later. Right now I'm too busy with bills, babes, breaking news, sports and who knows what all".

Ok, good luck. You'll have to hurry.

It's almost closing time.


By K. L. Shipley

Website: https://www.eclecticessays.com