“Is It True?”"What?"

“What Socrates said.”

“What did Socrates say?”

“He said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“Hhmmm… (rubbing beard whiskers) sit down here, let me grab a cup of coffee. You want one?”

(cups tink from the cupboard, coffee carafe hisses as it’s poured, the aroma spilling out into the room)

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Have you studied Socrates and know he said that but Plato is the one who wrote it down at Socrates’ trial? Ok, good.”

For now let’s just look at ‘the unexamined life…’ portion.

When you are young it is a parents responsibility to spot how God built you and to help you discover your interests and abilities.

Without that help our lives can be a struggle… imagine a fish out of water trying to be an eagle.

As we age and mature we can stop ourselves and say, “Hey, I have a brain, maybe I can figure this life thing out.”

And through the hard work of looking inward, taking personality tests, studying people, like Socrates, you start to get this perception… it’s a little out of focus but you can see yourself… out there… somewhere. Doing your thing. Your thing just isn’t clear yet.

Now… all along you were living… A… life, maybe feeling it had more downs than ups, feeling like that fish out of water. You may even have had some very good days… but still looking back they are a bit out of focus also… like they could have been a little better.

To examine something you have to look at it very, very closely.

So… the unexamined life… any life… has value. You just can’t see your own value yet.

I’ve found, through my own experience, if we didn’t get the help from our parents when we were little it is very hard to believe in ourselves as we get older, so even if we get some input later on… we don’t believe what those positive inputs reveal about our “life path” and how we could progress going down that way.

For me I had to learn to believe and trust God. Because I didn’t trust other people and I certainly didn’t trust myself. I had to, and am still learning… Gods laws, commands, precepts, Word, statutes, decrees, promises and the word I like the best… principles.

Two of those principles… “little by little”  and “a man reaps what he sows” have encouraged me as I have examined my own life, recently and continually.

I believe you must examine your life… regardless of station, style or fashion, in order to be the best version of yourself today. Because tomorrow your hope is to be “a little” better than you were today.

“I can see by the look on your face that thinking about “the unexamined life” is enough for today. We’ll finish up the, “is not worth living” part, the next time you visit. I know, I know. Go on. I wish we could talk longer too, but you gotta get back to school, before the roads get crappy. Love ya, watch for deer!”