By DINA ARÉVALO
Port Isabel-South Padre Press
editor@portisabelsouthpadre.com
Are you in a rush right now? Is your mind racing with all the tasks you have yet to accomplish today? This week? This month? Are you slowly, but steadily, ticking off checkmarks on you mental to-do list while adding more and more items to the end of it all the time?
Are you applying yourself methodically to your work, to the necessary things that have to get done, telling yourself you’ll take a break this weekend, or when your scheduled week of vacation arrives later this year? Maybe you’re telling yourself, “Just a little bit more. I’m this close to the end of the week. I’m this close to retirement. Just a little bit more, and then I can relax.”
Stop.
Life is fleeting, too fleeting to spend churning away at a wheel like a hamster, waiting for the day we will finally allow ourselves to look around and enjoy the world around us.
I’m not the first person to come up with that little nugget of wisdom, nor will I be the last. And I definitely don’t always follow my own advice. I’m also not trying to say we should shirk our responsibilities or act as if they don’t exist. What I am trying to say, though, is we all need to poke our heads up from time to time to appreciate our loved ones, our friends, and yes, even those tasks we’re trying so hard to accomplish. We need to take note of those things more often than we do.
Life is fleeting. That fact was driven home when a man I knew through the course of my work as a journalist died suddenly this weekend. Manuel Lara, who served as city manager for the City of San Benito, was found dead in his home Sunday morning. He was reportedly sitting in a comfortable chair surrounded by paperwork he was likely looking over in his capacity as the Resaca City’s top administrator. He was only 60 years old.
It was the weekend, yet Mr. Lara was working. Maybe he had told himself he would read just a few more pages before he took a break. We’ll never know.
San Benito has seen its share of controversy, and Lara was no stranger to it. Our sister publication, the San Benito News, took him and other City administrators to task more than once, but that doesn’t mean we, as journalists, couldn’t also see that he was a person, just like the rest of us.
That’s another thing that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of the daily grind: the people we interact with on a daily basis, they’re people. They have loved ones, spouses, parents, children, friends. They have worries. They have joys. In other words, they’re human.
So please, be kind to the people in your life, even those who are in it only in passing. Be kind to yourself, as well, because life is fleeting.
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