Living

At 10:05 a.m. on September 21, 2018, President Tran Dai Quang passed away. Although we know that no one can go against the eternal law of nature, this loss of the country and its people has only deepened the worries in people's hearts. "The soul returns to the fairyland with a peaceful heart/Those on earth are filled with sadness."

Honestly, I could not imagine it, and on top of that, I felt a pang of sadness knowing that less than 24 hours before his death, the President was still working normally. He passed away when the ink on his Mid-Autumn Festival letter to the children was still fresh. Yes, our President lived like that.
I once heard a teaching from someone, which roughly said: “When you are born, even if you cry, you will be surrounded by happy smiles. And when you leave this world, keep smiling even if you are surrounded by crying”. That is not a mere theory, not a wild statement, nor a paradox. Indeed, the value of each person is measured by the void they leave behind after they leave this world. No one wants to die even though they know for sure that the magic of immortality is only a myth.

We are alive and it is our duty to live. The fact that we are present in this universe, breathing, eating, and seeing the sun rise every day is a miracle, a priceless gift from God to each living being. God gives us this life and also gives us a great responsibility, and we have the duty to spend every second of our lives serving that responsibility.

So before thinking about death, why don't we ask ourselves how we have lived, are living and will live? Being hasty is a mistake, but human life is not long enough for us to leisurely have romantic plans. The pace of life urges us to act every hour, every minute. If the average life expectancy is 70, then we only have 25,550 days to live, and we spend 365 days each year. Our ancestors have a saying: "Don't put off today's work until tomorrow." Time for each person is not endless, it is even too short. Using time is a duty and also a culture, wasting time is ultimately a waste of life's resources. If we push today's work to tomorrow, it means we have just wasted a day in vain in the short 25,550 days of human life.

Through observation on television, it is not difficult to realize that before "going to meet Karl Marx and Lenin", our President's health had deteriorated. Normally, he has the right to rest to recover. But no, it can be said that the last 10 days of his life were a shuttle bus in a series of domestic and foreign activities. A rare sacrifice for heads of state. We have sent the President back to the motherland, praying that he rests in peace, his soul is liberated in a peaceful place.
All pain subsides with time, we cannot use tears to cover our lives. We return to daily life to answer the question of what is our work today? The proposition of life is not too complicated but strict enough. Life is to dedicate, to work but to do good, charitable, useful work. It seems that when someone dies, their life is looked back at like a rearview mirror. The values, the merits and even the mistakes are recognized more fully and objectively. Don't say "death is the end".

No, death is not the end, "A hundred years of stone steles will wear away, but a thousand years of oral steles will still stand." Unfortunately, in this world, there are still thousands of people who consider life as a walk in the park. They not only despise, not only insult, but worse, they lose their lives. Almost 100% of death row inmates shed tears before going to the execution ground to pay for their crimes, and in their last words, they do not forget to apologize to their loved ones, and truly regret their crimes.

They realize the honest values ​​of life too late, they don't have the chance to do it again even though the tears shed at the shooting range taste as salty as billions of other tears that have ever fallen on this planet.

These days, people talk a lot about a new hobby of young people, which is inhaling laughing gas. I heard that nowadays, buying laughing gas is as easy as buying vegetables. So sad, so regretful and so painful. How many young people spend their time on this extremely toxic game every day? Last week, at an outdoor music night right in the middle of the capital, 7 people died because of drug-related reasons. They are gone, but the way they returned to the earth is truly deplorable. Before their deaths were mistakes, after their deaths were pain. That is how they lived, impatient with nature and impatient with their surroundings.

"Live like a river to love your roots"
Live like a mountain reaching for heights
Live like the ocean, like the ocean to see the wide shore.
Live as you wish to see the vastness of life.
Don't think that you have to be this or that person to be able to make offerings. We are not saints, and there is no need to become saints. Be an ordinary person with offerings to the community, to society, to your loved ones and to yourself, that is the most meaningful journey of gratitude to the Supreme Being. Greatness is not far away but hidden behind ordinary actions, ordinary people. Right now, as we sit reading this article, somewhere there are still disabled people sitting and splitting toothpicks, somewhere there are children trying to spell, somewhere there are patients grimacing in pain, somewhere there are scientists working hard on a new material, somewhere there are cleaning ladies returning the halo to the neighborhood... That's it, life doesn't stop for a second, people are still silently making offerings around us in different ways. I like the four lines of poetry by author Nguyen Si Dai:
"The man who mends the sky and fills the sea"
The one who builds ramparts and builds walls
I am just a leaf
My job is green".
So, for leaves, green is also a sacrifice, green is the signal of life. It would be sad if one day the leaves around us were no longer green. Luckily, that despair will not happen, because out there, each leaf is still trying to photosynthesize to create chlorophyll, still diligently absorbing CO2 to create oxygen to feed all species. So fragile yet so great, thank life, thank the humble but resilient green leaves before storms.
Life is not only rosy but also full of challenges, when we overcome each challenge, it means we create a success. Don't be disappointed, don't be cowardly and never give up. Life is not simply about existence, turning pain into motivation is also a way to dedicate.