Are we really living life to the fullest?

I was riding the train into the big Apple this morning ( blackberry in hand) exploring my favorite websites for the latest Hollywood stories, Lost Spoilers and TMZ gossip when I came upon an interesting story on CNN.com. It was in the Lifestyle section which as of late I have been really enjoying with their hysterically clever editorials on marriage, parenthood and all things adult like.

The story is titled "your'e going to die the way you live." First off I always make it a point to click on to any site that starts off with You're going to die..just to make sure it isn’t directly related to me to interrupt my morning web surfing. What I discovered though was a fascinating piece of writing about how people across this country deal with their final months of life when faced with the dreaded Doctors prognosis of any disease with the word Terminal before it.

The article starts off with a story of a man from San Diego, or as in Spanish is called Whales Vagine" - bad attempt at Anchorman humor. This man was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he had at best five months to live, However he didn't immediately begin the chemotherapy treatments his doctor recommended. Instead, he and his wife drove up the California coast and spent a week among the redwoods north of San Francisco. Other personal stories were explored which I will not do a copy and paste job on to fill up this blog but the important theme of the story is what really had an impact on me. Not so much that I too have never seen the San Fran Redwoods but the basic human subconscious started to rise to the surface forcing me to ponder how I would choose to live out my final days. Morbid, philosophical thoughts on such a normal Hump Day but the topic at mind started to overwhelm me.

For starters we have all thought about death, if not voluntarily than through tragedy on the daily news or watching Jack Bauer add to his body count with each passing hour. Hopefully you do not think about death as much as the average man thinks about sex but I imagine the thought of the end of days pops into the average mind at least once or twice a day. I know that I think about the nothing that may await every time I get a paper cut or have indigestion from that unnecessary Quiznos sub. Or as of lately when dealing with the sad circumstances of accepting my parents getting older with emerging ailments or internal complications..

I for one live a pretty basic life spent staring at a computer screen daily for most of my paid 8 hours a day followed by staring at a TV for most of my unpaid 4 hours of night. If suddenly I was hit with the news that shall not be named I wonder how I would truly choose to live out my days. Granted anyone can kick the bucket at any time in any conceivable split second event and that doesn’t stop us from never leaving our homes. I can conceivably see myself taking that trip around the world..to do that bucket list and skydive out of a jet plane into a shark infested reef only to swim to shore where a Hawaiian Masseuse was waiting for me with two banana daiquiris for me to double fist in the 80 degree sun. Or maybe I'll go out renegade style and hijack a truck of illegal weed from Mexican Smuggles and go on a final Hunter Thompson cross country trip stopping off at every roadside BBQ joint for the search for the perfect ribs hosting a never aired Food Network show only airing in my mind..that is until the cartel find me and throw me off the Grand Canyon.

Alas I know deep down that I would probably choose to live out my days with my family, writing JJ Abrahams for the answers I desperately seek while promising to take those answers to the netherworld while at least double fisting makeshift cocktails in my suburban apt. I also would make an effort to Google images of those redwood trees just to feel that I also saw what San Diego man saw if only in pixel form. This is all existential shit to ponder on such a holy day at the start of Matza week..but I know that I will always have tons more than the four questions I will ask tonight and hope that I too can live life to the fullest, never sweat the small stuff, always spit towards the evil eye and always make sure to watch the ending of American Beauty from time to time to remind me how insignificant this life is and to enjoy every damn minute of it.

In the end that’s what this Lifestyle article did for me this morning and as thankful as I am to have You Tube, TV, Movie Theatres and any other exacapism technology that make us all forget about the inevitable I will continue to row my boat and live merrily with the gift of life to the fullest.