Waste of Life

My favorite scene in the 1976 movie, Rocky, is when Mickey (Burgess Meredith), Rocky’s trainer, irritated with Rocky, insults him, using an ethnic slur. 

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) responds, “You know, I’ve been coming in for six years and for six years you’ve been sticking it to me.  I want to know how come.” 

Mickey retorts, “You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I want to know how come.”

“You want to know?”

“I want to know.”

“I’m gonna tell you.  Because you had the talent to become a good fighter and instead of that you became a leg-breaker for a cheap, second-rate loan shark.” 

Trying to justify himself, Rocky responds with, “It’s a living.”

Mickey then sums it up for Rocky.   “It’s a waste of life.” 

Life is the most precious thing we have and maybe the only thing.  As Clint Eastwood’s character (William Muney) said in the 1992 Western movie, Unforgiven, “Hell of a thing killing a man.  You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever going to have.”

Another example of how precious life is was expressed in the ninth episode of the third season (1959) of the popular television series, Have Gun Will Travel, by Richard Boone’s character (Paladin).  “Do you think I hold my life in so little regard that I am not afraid to lose it?”       

To me, life is so precious that it’s a sin to waste it.  Life should be used to the fullest extent  possible.  That’s the reason we are here, to use our time in whatever positive way we can, but use it we must, not just to exist like a plant. 

I recently read about a Brazilian woman who is 88 years of age.  Most who were born in the same year as she was, 1927, are already dead.  Thus, she should take advantage of her extra time in some positive way that is possible for her to do.  On a recent Saturday morning, a friend asked her what she wanted to do on that beautiful, sunny day.  Her response, which is typical of her daily routine, is that she wanted to do nothing.  The next day, the same question, the same answer.  She mostly sits in front of the television watching what ever the same channel offers.  The friend has tried to encourage her to do something to take advantage of her opportunity to do something meaningful in her remaining years, for example to study English.  She refuses.  I believe that she is wasting her life.    

Recently, a cousin of mine sent me a photo from my brother’s (Joel’s) wedding which took place on Sunday, July 3, 1960, more than fifty-five years ago.  It was a photo of my father’s (Harry’s) family.  Besides himself, there was his wife (my mother, Margaret), four sons (including me), one daughter-in-law, three brothers, three sisters, two brothers-in-law, three sisters-in-law, and one nephew (19 people in all).  I remember that it was a happy day for all of us.  All were smiling, especially me at fourteen years of age.  I was wearing a tuxedo for the first time in my life.  I had the special responsibility of escorting my grandmother to her seat near the front of where the wedding ceremony was going to take place.

At that moment frozen in time by the camera, there was so much of my life still in front of me that I was unaware of on that day: high school, girls, dating, my first kiss, college, living on my own, graduation, getting a job as an accountant, making my own money, having my own home, meeting my first wife, marriage, New York, making love, having  two children, helping them grow up to be independent, well-adjusted human beings, divorce, Brazil, speaking Portuguese, meeting my second wife, Chapel Hill, Brazil again, second marriage, teaching English to eager Brazilians, and starting this blog.  When I posed for that picture in 1960, I didn’t know any of what would become my future.  But, I have tried to the best of my naive, innocent ability to mature and make good choices and decisions and learn from my mistakes as time passed.  I have become wiser.  I’ve had a good life so far, and I intend to keep making it better.  I try to use my time advantageously.  As someone once said, the past is over, the future is not guaranteed, so all we have is today.  Carpe diem.  Aproveite o dia.  Seize the day. 

Of the nineteen of us in the above-mentioned photo, fifteen are dead.  Their lives are over, no more chances, no more opportunities to take advantage of what life offers us.  We the living can’t throw away one single day, one single moment.  It’s too precious.  It would be a sin.  It would be a waste of life, as Mickey said.