Take a moment to reflect

This is a photo of a young boy comforting his sister in her last moments of life. It's heart-wrenching to look at and even more difficult to discuss with someone. The father who published the photo didn't do it looking for some virtue singling. He wanted it to be a symbol of the fragility of life. The picture is meant to for us to reflect on what it means to exist. The photo is helps  us to understand that we're finite and extremely vulnerable.

We all know this, yet it seems to be such a difficult task to spend time enjoying the small things in life: The first crest of sunlight on a warm spring morning, the laughter of children at play, a warm embrace from a loved one. Why is it that these moments seem to wash away quickly and are difficult to contemplate once they've disappeared?

Us humans are not designed to be deep reflectors in life. We've evolved in a hostile environment where food scarcity, predator danger and disease lurked around ever corner. In the modern world, none of these threats are a real danger to us anymore. One can forgive our inability to medicate effectively on the value of life when we've spent most of it just trying to survive.

When pictures like this roll through our social media feed, we need to recognize their value and take a moment to live in the present, to be thankful for whatever we have - big or small. Nobody really knows when this grand show will come to an end, but to live like it will last forever is perhaps the wrong approach.