Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. Henry David Thoreau
These are words written by Thoreau in his famous book Walden Pond. Anybody who has read any of Thoreau knows that he was a guy who marched to his own drummer. That alone makes him one of my heroes. Although he died at the age of forty-four he left us with many things to think about. All of us seniors need to quietly contemplate this most famous quote.
Will you go to your grave with the song still in you?
If this doesn’t make you a little uneasy then maybe you should just skip the post. I truly believe that even though there are almost seven billion of us currently living on this earth that God made each one of us unique with special talents and gifts. No two of us are the same in that regard. Most of us spend our lives in the rat race of life and chasing its definition of what it means to be successful. If, while doing that, we fail to understand and fulfill our dreams we might just die with that talent or gift still in us. What a waste that would be!
Our senior years give us time to sit back and contemplate these types of things. For the most part we are no longer in the rat race of life so that pressure is off of us. We are now capable of more thoroughly searching ourselves to determine if we have found those things that make us unique. For some of us the answer to that question is an emphatic yes we have, but for many of us those talents and dreams may still be within us. We owe it to ourselves and to our Maker to end our lives with our song thoroughly displayed to humanity.
Don’t go to your grave with your song still in you……
P.S. if you have a Kindle and are interested in reading about Thoreau, Amazon has many of his works including his most famous two (Walden, and Civil Disobedience) for free. You can’t beat that cost ;)
RJ's Corner 
An important blog here. And not necessarily a paradox to have it following your “Be an Attentive Idler” entry.
Far too many people think that to be “great”, one must be rich and/or famous. To me, one can truly be great without either of the aforementioned. There are so many great and wonderfully expressed souls that I know (and look forward to knowing) who have never made big news or high society, but are deserving of the many personal and heartfelt expressions of appreciation that (I certainly hope) they receive (hopefully while still living).
Thanks for sharing this one expression/manifestation of your “songs”.
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Thanks for the thoughtful words Steve. I wondered if anyone would see the apparent dichotomy of the last two posts. As you say they appear to be a paradox but in reality they meld quite well together. Walden Pond was Thoreau’s attempt to simplify almost 150 years ago and being an attentive idler is just a modern day version of the same thing.
Walden was required reading when I was in high school in the early 60’s but it is amazing what fifty years of gained wisdom does to that book. I see things in it now that I never would have even dreamed so many years ago.
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