“Only The Good Die Young”

Billy Joel’s song popped into my head this week: Only the Good Die Young. I’m not a big Billy Joel fan and the song’s lyrics really have nothing to do with this post. But the refrain of this one particular selection had me doing some deep thinking over the past week. A school mate’s untimely passing and the passing of a friend’s father put me off my center. These unfortunate events happening so close to each other caused me to do some questioning of life and the purpose for which we are all here. The ultimate reason we human beings exist. To love one another? To praise God or other deities based on religious preference? Why are we here?

As you grow older and your mind is exposed to different paths and ways of approaching life, you begin to question more, feel more deeply…or at least that is what my experience has been. I don’t consider myself to be a religious person by any stretch but I do recognize the spirituality in me and the force/energy/chakra that pushes me to do good works and love other people. But sometimes I wonder…am I doing enough? I pray. I contribute both my time and my finances to worthy causes. I live by the random acts of kindness paradigm and I love my friends and family with a full and unconditional heart. But when I review the everyday existence of so many around the world – from Haiti and Afghanistan to Africa and more close to home, the impoverished pockets of Chicago – I have to turn down the frequency on those tragedies to do my daily hustle and bustle. Get to work on time, travel to distant cities and countries, enjoy my spa appointment, be warm in my home and enjoy all the trappings of a successful urban professional. What is it about our human resilience that allows us to press on with our day to day mundane-ness with so much sadness, despair, unfairness, brutality, longing, strife in our world? Are we innately selfish or is this survival of the fittest in the millennia? Many of us trust in God or Buddha that he will handle and provide for the world as long as we remain faithful, dutiful, humble and loyal. And while that is a good strategy, it still doesn’t get at the root of my question.
When people are taken from this world so suddenly and we don’t know the grand plan, it naturally troubles us. We cry, we pray, we think and we love. And maybe, based on the limits of our existence on Earth, this is all that we can do.

I don’t have any of the answers definitively, just a lot of the questions.