Measure of Life

I’ve spent time in the company of individuals who have lived a very long time.  Some of them are precious souls, gifts to the world, full of wisdom and grace. Others are just old.  There’s nothing really remarkable to note about them except maybe their mean and contrary disposition. The first group – saints I like to call them – have lived their lives with service and sacrificial giving. Just being with them is a blessing. The second group seems to have spent their time on earth marked by an endless succession of days frittered away in the pursuit of self-centered pleasures. Being around them is just that, being around them. Someone once said that “the measure of a life is not its duration, but its donation.”  In other words, life is measured not by how long we live but by how much we give. It is in giving that we live a life truly worth living.