Day 3: In my head resides a list of ideas, none of which sound worth writing about today. Which means I’m coming up empty.

I’ve got nada. After two days, I’ve got nada nada nada. So much for thirty days of figuring this out.

Did you think I would give up that easily? Of course you did. Of course I didn’t.

How often do you consider the shortness of life? Do you think about what you want to accomplish in life and wonder if you’ll live long enough to do so? Or have you lived long enough that you’ve given up any sort of dreams like that?

Me, I constantly wonder about this. I constantly wonder: will I live long enough to complete the story I want to tell? Or will I die like Geoffrey Chaucer, leaving behind an unfinished story that keeps generation after generation wondering what more I had to say (of course that would require me to become even a tenth of the writer Chaucer was).

With increasing violence in the world, it leaves one wondering, will I leave behind a legacy of “his writing was about to take off?” Will I die from a heart attack ten years down the road? Will I live a great, long life that sees me build a successful writing career? Worst of all, will one of my “early death predictions” turn out to be the very way I die (whether “naturally” or person-caused)?

Now do I expect to die tomorrow or the next day? No. But I recognize the fragility of life. Each breath could be our last. Each moment ticks to death. Those words you say could be the final ones you said. I believe God knows what will happen and who it will happen to, but I believe He does not enjoy the sorrow each person must endure as we realize this life can’t last forever.

Live life to the fullest but not because of YOLO (you only live once). Live life to the fullest because you don’t know what you’ve got. Help another, love another, care for those you do. Fulfill your dreams and take a risk, get married and have kids. You only have one life to live, and you don’t know when it ends.

I think about life’s fragility and wonder when I’ll shatter. Will I be a Chaucer? Or will my gunslinger Roland live to reach that final Tower and see what resides inside? Will my Harry Potter beat his Voldemort or will my Rand al’Thor outlive me too?

You never know until you permanently know.

If once in a while I seem discouraged that my writing doesn’t go more quickly, it’s not because I’m not trying, but because I realize how big my story is (or how big I like to tell myself it is). I know what I want to say but don’t know if I can. If Father Time ends his clock or Death comes knocking at my door, I’d like to know I accomplished what I set out to do, but if not, I hope I’ve done enough.