3 Things to Learn from Kobe Bryant, Roy Halladay’s Passing

2. Never take life for granted

Bryant and Halladay’s playing days were over, but their greatness was just getting started.

Their deaths are a reminder that life is not guaranteed, even for those who seem unbreakable such as what the former Lakers and Phillies stars were at the peak of their careers.

We should realize that if we want to do something, say attend a sporting event, we should, because there’s no guarantee we will have the same opportunity down the line.

Chiara Gizzi writes that the only reason people “adopt complacency towards the beauty that surrounds us” is that they are caught up in their minds and “therefore fail to actually see it.”

Rather than being in the moment, Gizzi says that we are often too busy thinking about the next place we have to be, what we are going to eat for the next meal, or “what someone said to us a day, a week, a month or even a year ago.”

Gizzi continues, “All of this mental chatter pulls us away from the beauty that lies in the present, and causes us to become disgruntled and unappreciative. We lose touch with our gratitude and we end up taking things for granted, almost by accident.”

Had we lived more in the moment, we would have appreciated Bryant and Halladay more for who they were as athletes and human beings. There are plenty of other athletes, that while not close to greatness as what Bryant and Halladay achieved, they come close. Several play in the City of Philadelphia currently. We should appreciate them for who they are and for what they provide.

It is important that we live in the moment each day, as tomorrow is no guarantee.