GC#58 - Living On Borrowed Time - Omer Day 44

In yesteryear, we find people who lived for hundreds of years. As time progressed, Hashem said that this was no good fo humanity. Why not? If you cast your minds back, we  titled Podcast number 25: 'Who Wants To Live Forever?'. Perhaps that's rhetorical. After all, they say, you might just get bored.

So G-d just didn't want me to get bored? Wrong. He realised that if you have an infinite amount of time, you put off the less appealing things...'Manyana, manyana. I'll do it tomorrow...'

Imagine you were told that you had a month left to live. Would you waste your time? Obviously not. Only the pressure of time makes you want to maximise it. I heard a story of a man who was given 3 months to live. He was devastated at first, but pulled himself together. He rectified every wrong that he had felt he had committed. He patched up every broken relationship, and he smoothed out every metaphorical wrinkle possible. Then...a very apologetic doctor rang him up, to tell him that he had mixed up his diagnosis with another's (I always wonder about that other, but I don't know the his story). He was so sorry for having upset him.

But instead of losing his cool, our hero thanks the doctor profusely for having - albeit unwittingly - provided him with a unique opportunity which would never have happened, had he continued to live in the world of naivete and cognitive dissonance.

Both Yitzchok and Dovid, on day 44 of the Omer represent this idea. Because both know that they have been handed an opportunity that should never have been theirs by rights... 

Will we do the same?