Happiness is a Choice

Further On Down the Road

I sat on a bench on the Dry Tortugas Island.  We had just disembarked from the National Park catamaran that brings tourists to Fort Jefferson for various activities.  Randall and I counted ourselves among the birders and looked diligently for warblers in the branches of the sparse number of trees.  Another birding-looking couple approached.

The man, about forty or so, was accompanied by an older woman.  In subsequent conversation, I learned she was his mother, and they were Florida residents out for a day of birding.  She was equipped with binoculars and a bird list, while he carried a camera and his own set of binoculars.  She took a seat, and he set up his camera on a tripod.  While Randall is a fledging birder, he took to the wing years ago when it came to photography.  The sight of good camera equipment, as well as a fellow shutterbug, gets his juices flowing.  He began the conversation.

"What kind of camera is that?"

"It's a Canon with a three-hundred lens on it.  Is that a Canon EOS Rebel you have there?  Looks like a step or two above mine."

"It's the Rebel.  Just got it a couple of weeks before we started this trip.  So far, I like it.  Do you use a stabilizer?"

"I do anytime I use a three-hundred or more lens."

"I'm with you.  I talked to a young woman a couple of days ago who said she had no trouble holding her camera still, and I think her lens was a four-fifty!  That's a nice tripod."

"Well, here on the Island, we've gotten some real good looks at peregrines and broad-winged hawks.  They'll sit for quite a while.  I'm hoping to get a shot at one today."

"I didn't think about that.  I do have my tripod, but left it back at the hotel.  I brought it to Florida to get some pictures of Ann and me.  Have you ever used a telescope with your camera?"

"No.  What do you mean?"

"I bought one equipped with a camera attachment.  I've gotten some striking moon shots."

"That's pretty expensive, isn't it?  I'm afraid it's going to have to wait until I'm a little further down the road."

"I guess I'm already further down that road.  If life were a football game, I'm pretty sure I'm in the fourth quarter."

Three of the four of us laughed.  The man was not sure whether he should laugh or apologize. 

"I didn't mean that.  I wasn't referring to your age.  I just..."

"No offense taken.  It's just the truth.  I'm past waiting for the right time."

"Well, I guess as long as the game is not on the line yet, you are okay."

They continued to talk about lenses, f-stops, megapixels, etc. until someone spied a Cape May warbler, and our attention was diverted again.  After a few minutes, they went one way, and we wandered off in another direction, but that conversation continued to haunt me.

I have been blessed or cursed--depends on who you ask--by my personal philosophy of life.  My kids and co-workers tease me by saying I live in Ann Land where I expect things to go well.  They usually do, and I have never gotten caught up in worrying about the future.  My approach is: if the rent's paid, the groceries bought, and you have any money left, then buy it, rent it, or experience it.  I am aware of my responsibility to take care of my own golden years, but I cannot, or will not, do so at the peril of today.

I'm a strong believer that, before we show up here in this world, we get a voice in choosing our own paths.  We are participants in designing the fields of choices we'll have.  To nutshell: we were alive before we arrived, and we'll be alive after we leave.  To be sure we use our free wills, we lose all memory of the game plan and face every fork in the road with the limited knowledge we've obtained since physical birth.  The extra strength and grace are available only by tuning into God and nurturing our spiritual growth.

I'm convinced our individual assignments are to live as if we had forever--because we do in some sense of forever--and to live as if today were our last--because it may be.  These are not mutually exclusive goals, but rather two sides of the same goal.  In the real world, there is no further down the road.

Living today with an eye on tomorrow presents a fine line to walk, and that is 'fine' in every sense of the word.