I have a blue paper ticket that I carry in my money clip. Every time I pull it out to withdraw another dollar bill to spend, I see it. It’s the very same kind of ticket that we have all seen a million times before. The kind of ticket that you get at any bakery—it’s paper, it’s blue and it’s got a number on it. We all take theses tickets and we wait in line. When your number is called, you get served. Familiar, huh?

I see this ticket every day. My ticket is like all such tickets but something about this ticket is quite different. It reminds me of something important, because this particular ticket is there to remind me that I am standing in a different sort of line. This line ends at the grave’s edge at Roselawn Cemetery. It speaks to me. It says, “Carpe Diem, seize the day, your time is short and grows shorter all the while. Do you really have the time to not be the man you want to be?”

Such a notion for all of us usually remains a velleity, but this ticket, for me, moves me to action. No reminder of the end of the line, this one has become my ticket to ride.

definition:
noun: velleity; plural noun: velleities 1. a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.
“the notion intrigued me, but remained a velleity” commonly expressed as, “I gave it a passing thought.”

Last Updated on February 5, 2020