Shattered but still whole

My glasses snapped this morning.  The damage is irreparable.  Oh well.  In the grand scheme of things, whilst irritating, and somewhat inconvenient, I have another pair (several, actually) and they are replaceable.  I have had several pieces of news recently that have caused me to pause, and think about the truly precious nature of time, and how life really is too short to sweat the small stuff. 

There are things over which I have no control.  Shit happens.  As M. Scott Peck so wisely wrote:  Life is difficult (The Road Less Travelled, 1978/1992, p.13). Good, so now we've come to terms with that, we can actually get on with it.

In her poem, A Summer Day, Mary Oliver posed the question:  Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  It's well worth considering, given that this may well be it.  I don't find this unpalatable, or even particularly maudlin.  The opposite, acceptance gives me clarity and with it, a sense of true liberation.    

I could, I suppose, patch the frames together.  Even as a temporary solution, selotape would feel unsatisfactory.  These are, after all, the lenses through which I view the world.  They shape my perspective, and afford me my focus.  Sometimes, it's time to say goodbye, and let go of those things that no longer serve us., or that aren't doing their job to the requisite standard.   

I admire and resonate with Diane Ackerman's sentiment in her statement:  I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it.  I want to have lived the width of it as well.  2012 is well underway, and glasses or no glasses, I'm determined to make the most of it.