| |
 |
Why
I wrote this. |
|
 |
| |
|
|
 |
|
A friend of mine relayed
a story to me about his dying grandmother. She explained
to him that of all the things she had done and not done
in her life, she didn’t regret the indulgences.
She didn’t regret her trips around the world. She
didn’t regret falling in and out of love. She didn’t
regret lavish dinners or long nights of dancing. Looking
back, these were the things that defined her life, and
reminded her of how remarkable it was to simply be alive.
“You have one chance at this,” she told him.
“Be decadent.”
I
wrote this list as a personal reminder that I need to
be indulgent in life. I publish it so that others can
hound me about fulfilling it.
As
for you, (building on a joke from author Bill Bryson)
never forget that of 400 million or so of your father's
spermatozoa that scrambled for courtship in your mother’s
uterus, you survived a 1 in 400 million chance of being
born. The chance that your mother was ovulating that
day: about 2 in 28. The chance that your father was
going to get lucky that night: 1 in 10. The chance that
they would meet in a world of 5 billion people: 1 in
3 million. The chance that in the entire history of
all homo sapiens they would be born in the same timeframe
to permit childbirth: 1 in 4 billion. The chance that
homo sapiens would evolve from primordial gas: 1 in
45 trillion. The chance that earth would permit life
altogether in a universe of uninhabitable planets: 1
in 750 quadrillion.
In
the end, you might have had a 1 in 500 trillion gazillion
chance of being born. Congratulations. Good show. Bravo.
The chance of you now having a resplendent life is singularly
up to you.
|
|
