The First Golden Rule on Living the Good Life*

When a 103-year-old man living in a small village was asked what his secret was, his answer was fairly simple: “I have always kept myself busy. I have been living my life. My hair has turned white, my hands and feet are not as strong as they used to be, but I can still reason. And as long as I reason, as long as I keep my mind engaged, my spirit, my soul is at peace. I can still examine and experience the world around me and participate in it, that’s what makes me happy. I can reason under the pine tree how to make better baskets. It now takes longer-much longer than it used to take to make each one for them. But it doesn’t matter. I no longer make them to earn a living. I make them just for the beauty of it, just for the pleasant thought of young men carrying grapes in vineyards. I can still examine life in the village coffee shop where I debate local, national, and international issues with my fellow villagers, and meet new people visiting the area. I examine life in the village church where I raise anew the question of our being. I examine life in the farm where I still plant and nurture olive trees, dreaming of the days the new generation will harvest them, and cut branches to crown Olympic victors.

I examine life by my fire place. I…,” the old man went on and on. “The day I stop examining life, I will be dead.“ That was two years later, just three months shy of his 105^th birthday.

  

This old man’s message about life states clearly and loudly the first rule of spiritual living by reasoning:

EXAMINE LIFE, ENGAGE LIFE

WITH VENGEANCE; ALWAYS

SEARCH FOR NEW PLEASURES

AND NEW DESTINIES TO REACH

WITH YOUR MIND.

This rule isn’t new. It echoes the verses of ancient Greek philosophers and most notably those of Plato through the voice of his hero Socrates.  Living life is about examining life through reason; nature’s greatest gift to humanity. The importance of reason in sensing and examining life is evident in all phases of life; from the infant who strains to explore its new surroundings to the grandparent who actively reads and assesses the headlines of the daily paper.  Reason lets human beings participate in life, to be human is to think, appraise, and explore the world, discovering new sources of material and spiritual pleasure.
Some people fully understand the significance of reason in examining and participating in life. They espouse new ideas, long for new things, new relationships, constantly discovering new interests, escaping from their boring routines. They engage life with enthusiasm; grasping life aggressively and squeezing from it every drop of excitement, satisfaction, and joy.  Some discover new professional challenges, build new bridges, new skyscrapers; develop new medicines, and new computer gear.  Others discover new hobbies, scaling mountaintops, exploring the sea bottom, and the depths of the jungle. A third group addresses the ills of humanity, the sick, the poor and the disadvantaged, and amasses funds, food and medicine to comfort and cure them.
A properly examined life protects people against living a life as spectators.  It bestows the opportunities that accompany every sunrise and it does so even for those who are no longer in their youth.  People, who continue to explore life fully, even though they may be advanced in years, can still discover that something new awaits them everyday regardless of age–a new place to travel, a new book to read, and new people to meet. The key to unleashing the potential of reason is attitude. The person who approaches life with a child-like wonder is best prepared to defy the limitations of time, is more “alive,” more of a participant in life at the age of sixty or even seventy than the average teenager.
Unfortunately, not everyone fully understands the significance and potentialities of reason. Some people fail to cultivate and utilize it to its fullest extend, and fail therefore to participate in a fully human existence.
Life is full of potential but too often people settle for a series of stale routines, allowing themselves to become content with the dull and ordinary activities that have guided their lives for years.  They abandon the sense of adventure that once colored their lives and instead accept one compromise after another, staying on the sidelines of life, isolating and alienating themselves from friends and relatives—
They no longer examine life!