Time Marches Onward

My best friend had her 60^th birthday recently and she went “WOW” and then “WHOA” which is exactly the way I think as my own time comes galloping at me.  Reaching this milestone is an achievement in and of itself, which may sound strange since it’s just another year gone by and we don’t have a lot of control over time.  But in the age we have grown up in we were tempted and subjected to many trials that we did have the power to say no to and possibly contributed to our staying healthy and able to reach this age. 

       It’s an achievement to survive life even though it may appear that in our “civilized” world we have few of the challenges of bygone days and yet when you really stop to consider what we are subjected to daily it is a wonder we make it through our lives.  If we can do so with grace and dignity how great is that?  During the course of my work day I continue to remind myself to be grateful that I work for a good company, that I have many wonderful colleagues that I can call “friend”, that my wages are such that I can enjoy the luxury of a trip once a year and that my work is interesting, my boss is kind and my team is great.  En route I have the challenges as many others on the road, surviving those drivers who feel entitled to break rules, put others at risk and generally cause us to run a gamete of danger.

       Yesterday in our meeting we also discussed security safety and I spoke up about how many of us are outside our comfort zone when we challenge a stranger from tailgating into the office behind our scanned pass.  Whenever we don’t do so we actually put lives at risk because we never know when that stranger might actually be a lunatic like those brothers in Boston a couple of weeks ago.  We really do live in a comfort zone that lulls us into believing Canada is immune to the same madness that seems to run rampant in the USA but we really shouldn’t allow ourselves to be so naive.  I sound paranoid, I realize that, but as I said to my mother last night while watching “Revolution” we have been a very lucky generation to have lived our lives without witnessing war or chaos.  Mom doubted that people could become so violent when I reminded her that only 60 years ago people went mad in Europe.  Not only that, you only have to consider the popularity of shows such as “Survivor” to realize that people have not evolved much since the days of the Roman gladiators.  People in general enjoy looking at blood and guts, just consider how many rubberneckers slow down traffic just to stare at an accident scene.  I shudder at the thought.

That's the flow of the brain this morning.