Live Your Life to the Fullest

We are part of living history right now. It will probably be talked about for generations. Schools are closed, stores are empty, sports are canceled, people are quarantined. There is a lot of fear surrounding the pandemic.

This morning I was listening to a podcast, and, like a lot of podcasts right now, they talked about how they were handling the virus and subsequent social distancing as a family.

But before they got into the topic they shared a quote from CS Lewis.

When he wrote this, it was right in the midst of WWII. The atomic bomb had been invented and threats of it caused a lot of fear. This was his response to the fear.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

I think he is saying to keep living your life. Stay physically distant, but connect with others socially. Create a routine. Learn a new skill–something that you’ve always said you wanted to do but just didn’t have the time. Well, now you have the time. Spend time with your family. Work on a project. Keep living!

What does it mean to you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.