Pay Attention and Smile

It was a summers day on Caper Breton Island. I had spent the night in Maskells Harbor and had finished breakfast when I decided to explore the road that curved around the harbour and up the hillside just out of sight of the boats anchored there. It was a quiet road far away from the nearest town and even though this was the height of tourist season there was to be no car passing by for the entire hour I spent walking. A brook wound its way into the harbor and a small bridge facilitated the intersection with the road. It was on the bridge that I met her, a little salamander parked directly on the yellow centerline in the middle of the bridge. I pondered her presence and realized that her species had outlived mine for many years and wondered what wisdom she might share. I stopped and listened with my soul and to my surprise she had a message for me.

She reminded me that the earth was some 4 billion years old and that humans have only inhabited it for some millions of years. She pointed out that the sailboat that brought me here was a result of a technology revolution that so far had only survived for some hundreds of years. Then she reminded me that the this planet will be spinning around our sun long after technology and my species are but a faint memory and that she and her kind will likely still find a rock on which to climb to catch the late morning rays.

Her parting advice therefore rang so true I have been carrying it in my heart ever since. 

"Life is like a snapshot in eternity...." she said. "So pay attention and smile"

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