How You Spent Your Last 5 Minutes

There is currently an excerpt in the Oklahoma Gazette about an 80-something year old man who died recently.  In the process of exacting his belongings, the old man’s diary was found, and this diary was unique, in that the man had a compulsion of recording the mundane events of his life, in great detail, every 5 minutes!  No detail was spared, from the brand of razor and stroke pattern used while shaving, to the consistency of his stools and the number of toilet paper squares he subsequently used!  Every 5 minutes, this man logged the activities that he thought defined his existence.  

So I began thinking of how I have spent my last 5 minutes; for that matter, my last 5 hours or days or years.  What would I journal about that would define my existence?  Sure, I went to work, cleaned house, went to the gym, and made sure I didn’t miss any college football on Saturdays.  But, aside from the mundane day-t0-day-this-and-that, what have I done that really matters?  What if a majority of my entries were about relationships that I strengthened, lives that I touched, right causes that I fought for, and sacrifices that I made to better others’ lives?  Would my journal be something worth reading?  Would yours?

Advertisement