Today marks the end of the latest life experience of a complete revolution of the earth around the sun and another begins. Life is full of endings and beginnings. After experiencing the fiftieth revolution, the realization hit me that I had lived more than half my life. Time was precious and felt as if it were falling like grains of sand through my fingers.

Mythology was created in part because humans could not deal with the finality of the end of their own existence. Concepts such as reincarnation and resurrection were created in order to give hope of a new beginning after this earthly end. To a rational thinking person, this is an empty and delusional concept, to pacify the fears of ceasing to exist.

The promise of another existence after this one is an enticing belief indeed, but I feel that it also does a great disservice to humankind. I need to have this drumming that I am forever approaching death’s door. I need this urgency, this call to action, to brush off the sleep of life and really live.

The Bible offers differing answers to the question of “What is the point to life if there is suffering/” The most suitable one is found in Ecclesiastes 9. Here the writer is admonishing us to do whatever we can now, to live life to the fullest, seize the day, because nothing is done once we are in the grave. It is often paraphrased as, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

This is the impetus that is needed for living life. Often, movies that deal with immortality come to the conclusion that we need the impetus of death to drive us to action and to live. The promises of an afterlife can drive one to immoral acts of the end justifies the means. This is deplorable and it underscores the need for the realities of the finality of existence.

Some people say that age is just a number, but age is a reality and it is highly unlikely I will live to be 100. Again, saying age is only a number replaces the impetus of death, with a cozy feeling of don’t worry, you’re not getting older.

Roughly, seventy years as an adult is not that long, and we never know what the future may bring, a crippling car crash, a sudden heart attack, dementia, etc. So, at the beginning of my 58th year, each year and each day of my is precious. There is no time to just ride things out and coast through life.

My mother passed away at the age of 76 and my father at 90. I am on the downside slope and the impetus of death is staring me in the face, as Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, death is knocking and could enter at any moment. There is no time to put off difficult choices.

Sometimes difficult endings are necessary, to enable new beginnings. At the beginning of last year, I adopted a new life motto, from the title of a Talk Talk song, Life Is What You Make It. I have fully embraced this. If I want to be happy, it is up to only me to make that happen.

The year has been full of firsts and new beginnings, with difficult endings that made new beginnings possible.