March Ramble

Just a bit of rambling thought today. Shocker, I know.

I was driving down the freeway the other day and a car passed me that had those vinyl letters in the back window that said "Die Trying".

They were young punks in that car, so they probably thought it was a fairly tough statement and didn't mean for it to cause undue thinking on any one's part--especially a kooky lady in a crapper suburban like me.

But I did think about it for awhile. Probably longer than I usually think about things, and I'm sure I'll get over it sooner rather than later....but still. I actually pondered a bit. (Write that down, because it will probably be awhile before I ponder again..)

My first thought (after the one about punk kids and their driving habits..,), was that the phrase 'die trying' is actually what everyone should hope for.

In the religion I belong to, we believe that everyone should strive toward perfection. Christ gave us the perfect example and we should emulate that and do good deeds, love thy neighbor, etc.

But also in my religion--especially in the women--I think that they have taken that perfection route a bit too literally. There are all sorts of statistics on the number of women in my State who are on anti-depressants. And I have felt for awhile that a lot of that is due, in part to the drilling in of the perfection statements.

The key is that we are to strive for that. It never, ever says we will actually become perfect. No one can. It is just part of being human that makes it so. We cannot become perfect in this life. We can, however, try to become better people. Better wives, husbands, friends, brothers...We can help others, we can volunteer, we can set good examples and try our darnedest to not be judgemental of other people and the choices they make. And we can be easier on ourselves and those around us.

No one is perfect. It isn't going to happen in this lifetime. All we can do is try to become better tomorrow than we are today and not be hard on ourselves when we slide backwards a bit because of our human nature.

All we can do is try. Try to just be good to yourself and those around you. Try to give up bad habits and replace them with good ones. Try to learn more. Try to be an example of a decent human being when the rest of the world is going to crap. Try to be more involved. Try to be more forgiving. Try to love yourself and not stress so much about being perfect.

Try every day until we die.

Hence, the 'Die Trying'. That's what we should all be doing. We should die trying to be better people. To make the world--at least our little part of it--a happier place to be. Die trying to make other people's lives a little nicer.

A great thought that sort of goes along with this whole jumble of ramble is from Marvin J. Ashton, an apostle from my church. He said:

“Be one who nurtures and builds. Be one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them”.

I know it isn't a huge epiphany of sorts. It is just a reminder that even if we die tomorrow, we won't be dying perfect...but we will hopefully die trying to be a better person than we are right now.

And like my favorite part of that quote..."Leave people better than you found them."

If we do that, we won't just die trying.

I think we will have died succeeding.