Dear Editor:
Selena Houle, a Grade 8 student at the Cochrane Christian Academy, submitted this article to the Eagle as part of a school project to encourage youth. The article is based on living every day like it’s your last.
There are over seven billion people on earth today and this is only the estimated population.
Everyday all of us, at some point or another, will pass by hundreds of people. You pass people in the grocery store, at the gas station, or even perhaps at school. Everywhere we go there are people.
Some we know well, some we know in passing and some not at all. Some live in their own world, while we “happily” live in ours. Everyone has their own story and we could never possibly hear them all, but if today were your last day would you regret not knowing the stories and the people behind them?
Recently, at my school, we have been reading Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris. We have been learning about youth rebelling against the low expectations of society on what we can accomplish, what choices we will make and the things we can do. Through our reading my class was challenged to go out and “do hard things” within are community to make a positive difference. This article is my contribution.
“If Today Was Your Last Day” is a song written and performed by Nickelback. It was also my inspiration for this project. I’ve always loved the lyrics for this song because the words are powerful enough to inspire. “Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?” and “Each day’s a gift and not a given right”.
I started thinking; if today was my last day what would I do differently? Through the course of reading “Do Hard Things” I realized that all my great plans involved ‘someday’. Someday, I’ll say I’m sorry. Someday, I’ll say thank you and do all those things I meant to do. But what if “someday” was too late?
I realized there would be things that would be hard to say and a lot I would have missed. Would I have called old friends, would I have forgiven my enemies? If today was my last day I’d want to make every second count because there is no second try. Most of all I’d want to make a difference in the lives of the people who’d I’d leave behind. But the truth of life is: tomorrow might be too late. Car crashes, natural disasters, freak accidents and things like heart failure could take away those some days.
So now what? This is supposed to be a service project right? Get to the “Could you please donate money to this or that to help such and such a cause.” That’s not my project. My project is to bring awareness of living in the present. My hope is that some of you, if only a few, will embrace the ‘today’ instead of the ‘someday’.
So call up your parents and those old friends you haven’t seen in a while and start back from scratch if that’s something you need to do. Or just let other know how much you care about them. Offer a smile or a friendly greeting to the clerk at the grocery checkout stand. Help a stranger and become a part of his/her story. Who knows, you might even make a friend. Every second counts because there’s no second try.
Selena Houle, Grade 8 student at Cochrane Christian Academy
