Tenuous
Today I am grateful for a nice phone conversation with my Aunt Helen. I am also grateful for sweat and endorphins to get me going this morning.
Tenuous is today's word. Some of the other words you will find in the definition for tenuous are slender, flimsy, weak, shaky. I like to use the word fragile. As in handle with care. Life is tenuous. If we don't treat it as such, we might lose it. If we treat it as such, we will still lose it, but hopefully we will have appreciated more along the way.
If I consider life to be tenuous, I give it more respect and care. My own and yours too. It doesn't mean I live cautiously all the time and barely leave my house. It means I try not to be foolish or reckless in my behaviors and choices. Life is fragile enough. Why add to it by drinking and driving, texting and driving, smoking, yelling at someone, not exercising, forgetting to be grateful, not taking the time to say "I love you," eating too many unhealthy foods, and so on?
This is when someone will usually bring up the futility of being careful all the time yourself because you can't guarantee what other people will and won't do. That drunk or texting driver may hit you or a loved one. That ungrateful person may be rude to you in the line at the store. Sure. We can't control other people and their actions. But I prefer to treat my life with care for as long as I have it. It may or may not extend my life in terms of years, but it already is extending my life in terms of daily quality.
When I think of tenuous and fragile, I invariably arrive at precious. Life is indeed precious. Treat it as such.
Tenuous is today's word. Some of the other words you will find in the definition for tenuous are slender, flimsy, weak, shaky. I like to use the word fragile. As in handle with care. Life is tenuous. If we don't treat it as such, we might lose it. If we treat it as such, we will still lose it, but hopefully we will have appreciated more along the way.
If I consider life to be tenuous, I give it more respect and care. My own and yours too. It doesn't mean I live cautiously all the time and barely leave my house. It means I try not to be foolish or reckless in my behaviors and choices. Life is fragile enough. Why add to it by drinking and driving, texting and driving, smoking, yelling at someone, not exercising, forgetting to be grateful, not taking the time to say "I love you," eating too many unhealthy foods, and so on?
This is when someone will usually bring up the futility of being careful all the time yourself because you can't guarantee what other people will and won't do. That drunk or texting driver may hit you or a loved one. That ungrateful person may be rude to you in the line at the store. Sure. We can't control other people and their actions. But I prefer to treat my life with care for as long as I have it. It may or may not extend my life in terms of years, but it already is extending my life in terms of daily quality.
When I think of tenuous and fragile, I invariably arrive at precious. Life is indeed precious. Treat it as such.
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