Dear Death, Please Knock Before Entering.

Day after day you wake up. You mindlessly follow the daily routine of brushing your teeth and washing your face. Yeah- life tells you to stop and look at the roses, but even when you do, it can only be for a few seconds. What's the point in even taking the time out of your day to "appreciate" these wonders of nature and wonders of life if you can't ever seem to find time to pay respects to them? To acknowledge that lives, other than your own, occur daily around you--from the bees making honey to the skies shifting winds.

In our culture of hustle-bustle-ism, it becomes second nature to simply overlook the scenery...I get it. And in no way do I ask you to stop what you are doing just so that you appreciate the birds humming around you. Quite the contrary- I wish you and I became more aware of the unconscious, repetitive daily routines that we so mindlessly execute. Because it is these mindless executions--I think--are what entrap us in a cycle of repetition. We choose to exclude variety in our lives. We choose to do the same thing over and over again, because we never realize that we might die some time. And if we realized that death were ever so close to us, we may behave differently.

Case in point: On our way to school or work, we grab our wallet and keys. Did you ever look at your wallet and notice the expiration date? I did. You know what I thought? If I knew I was going to die a week from now, would I have to let the DMV know? How often do we get so close to death that our minds--the only thoughts preoccupying our minds--revolve around death?

Case in point: We drive the car and instinctively turn on the radio. I saw an ad for AT&T about losing a precious moment. If I once sat in a car and listened to the radio right away, I could have missed the sounds of a fire horn coming nearer to me within milliseconds. Or I could have been busy flipping a radio channel instead of rolling down the windows and simply listening to the sounds of the city--the people walking and the cars flowing.

Case in point: We grab a bag of chips before sitting down to watch tv. If I had a penny for every chip I ate in front of a screen, I think I would be the next Warren Buffet. But in reality, if I get a chunk of cholesterol for every chip I eat, I get heart disease. So if I knew that the next bag of chips I opened would lead to heart disease, would I do it?

Basically, we live in a world where it is impossible to carpe diem "seize the moment". But what happens when we stop realizing there are moments to be seized? For example, after routinistic patterns of eating unhealthy foods, people become obese. A recent Jamie Oliver discovery on the Oprah show proved one point: when an obese person dies, do you know how the funeral goes? First, they must get an extra-extra large casket that is double the size of a normal one. In carrying the casket (which can only fit through some double doors), the family is not able to give the body any dignity. Even while dead, the person is being humiliated. Ever seen the film What's Eating Gilbert Grape? It's about a mom who was so morbidly obese that she quit going outside in years, and eventually died on her bed. So does anyone ever think about the specifics of dying? Will we, too, lead our bodies to become machines and then die mindlessly?

Death comes suddenly, too, and can wipe out en masse--it has done so in the recent tragedies of Haiti and Pakistan. Does anyone ever look at the clouds, day by day, and think: one day it is these very clouds that might strike me?

If death can so easily invite itself to our lives, then what--exactly--defines or proves our existence? Do we prove that we exist by driving all day, getting stuck in traffic, and going home then watching tv? Or do we prove our existence by planting seed after seed and sowing the crops? How do we define ourselves when it comes time to place a tombstone over our dead bodies? "Amelia Noor- mother, wife, and daughter?" Is that a definition?

Life is an endless acre of corn fields. Each row represents a week, and each stalk is a day, and each kernel a minute. When you drive past the corn fields, they all look the same. Each one is a repetition of the last. There are a few rotten stalks, and several dead kernels. But when you drive past so fast, it's hard to focus on them, hard to notice them, because all the life surrounds them and engulfs them. You keep driving and driving past the acres of corn fields, but you never think--could the next acre be the last one I drive past?