In the end, you can’t take any of it with you
By: Andrew Ameer
Opinions Editor
While going through some of my father’s old things recently, I was struck by a fact: You can’t take it with you.
You can’t take all the money you’ve made in this world with you to the next. You can’t take your trading card collection, or your video games, cars, makeup, expensive shoes, clothing. You can’t take any of it. It’s all going to be here while you move onto the next world.
My father died recently, suddenly and unexpectedly. He was only 50 years old. I am 23.
He died of either a heart attack or stroke, due to high blood pressure. And one thing I realized after he passed was that like a lot of people, my father spent a lot of his life pursuing material things.
He bought tons of items. His basement and house was full of supplies. Blankets, food, fans, video games, movies, generators, air conditioners, clothing, cameras, punching bags, guns. You name it, he had it.
He virtually had an entire Wal-Mart and Amazon combined in both of his houses. And when he died, I had to go through all his stuff and sort out what needed to be thrown out and what needed to be kept.
While looking through all this stuff, I even found quite a large amount of money. Here and there, jars of coins. Brown paper bags, envelopes of bills. I gave these right to my mother, who still has four young children to raise on her own, but while finding all of these things, I was struck yet again on the futility of the materialistic lifestyle so many of us live.
I had something of an epiphany. My dad was by no means a rich man. Yet, throughout a lifetime, he had accumulated all these things. These material items. These things that all of a sudden one day, meant nothing to him.
I calculated the value of most of his stuff, and it was in the 10s of thousands of dollars. I would have to work for years to be able to acquire the things he did in his lifetime, yet why should I? When one day I will leave these things behind, just as he did, and for what?
Can I bring these things with me to the next world? Should I spend my life working day and night to buy more and more things? No. I will spend my life making memories. I will spend my life loving, living, experiencing joy and bringing joy to those around me.
I will minimize my pursuit of material things, and instead spend a life living life to its fullest. Loving, living, happy.
My main point is don’t spend your whole life saving for that big trip if you never get to take it. Splurge a little, stop and smell the flowers. Life truly is about the journey, not the destination.
