Why Live Like a Fruit Fly?

The average life expectancy of an ordinary fruit fly is in the neighborhood of only a few weeks.

As far as I can tell, fruit flies usually don't sit around watching TV. Fruit flies probably don't waste much time on the Internet. Fruit flies rarely worry about their cell-phone minutes. Fruit flies blink out of existence too quickly to go out of their way to be unkind to other fruit flies.

A fruit fly is born and then buzzes around a bit. It attends to its fruit fly agenda and subsequently succumbs to old age before witnessing a single change of season.

This book is about finding peace and happiness although it might not be immediately apparent from the following sentence:

You're dying. You've been dying since the moment you were born.

Wait.

Stop thinking about what might be on the next page. Stop thinking about what you might like for dinner.

Wrap your mind around this for a moment: As you read these words, you're moving closer to the inevitable end. We all are.

I know you're not an idiot. I know on some level you're well aware of your own mortality. But if you're anything like me, you rarely take it into consideration as your days, months, and years just slip away.

Slip away . . .

Life is short for fruit flies and for us as well. You may have your whole life ahead of you, but as you grow older, it seems as though less and less time elapses between birthdays. If you haven't felt this yet, you will.

I was just four years old. It was early in the morning. The sun wasn't even shining through the windows yet. I was wearing a little bathrobe and only had one sock on. I looked pretty cute.

I opened the fridge and fed Chuckles a piece of Munster cheese. Chuckles was my black lab. We had to put him to sleep when I was in the fifth grade.

I blinked and opened my eyes at my high school graduation.

I blinked again and woke up on my thirtieth birthday with fresh wounds from Corporate America. I'm thirty-seven now. Tomorrow I could be sixty.

Unfortunately for some, aging won't be an option. The best-laid plans of mice and men often get severely screwed up. Life is unpredictable. Tsunamis, swine flu, earthquakes, terrorists, magic bullets, spoiled milk . . . you can get hit at any time, from any conceivable angle.

Seize the day.

What does it mean to live like a fruit fly? The hell if I know. I'm joking of course. I just wanted to lighten the mood a bit. But now it's time to enlighten the mood.

Does living like a fruit fly mean you should take whatever money you have and blow it on chocolate because you'll be dead by the end of the week anyway?

No.

Does it mean you should jump out of a plane from 15,000 feet with a hastily packed parachute?

Please don't. Statistics show you'll make it to see many more tomorrows.

But you might not. And people who live like fruit flies are well aware of this. They don't waste time. Every moment counts. Every choice is critical. Fruit flies don't live in the past or the future. They live in the present.

Fruit fly folks strive to love unconditionally. Fruit fly folks pursue their passions with blinders on.

Giving love and doing what they love is their path to peace and happiness.

If we're going to die one day, which seems to be the current trend for all living things, maximizing the warm feelings of peace and pure happiness for all parties involved should be our central ambition.

(By the way, you just read the introduction.I didn't call it the introduction because if you're anything like me, you would have just skipped right over it.)