The Time of Your Life

As young people face the future, no doubt there are some who suppose (and some who sometimes say) that they would rather have been born at some other time, that they would rather have lived in some other day⎯which is partly understandable, because troubles with which we are closely acquainted seem so much worse than troubles with which we are not closely acquainted. But you who think you would have chosen another time of life, suppose you tell us when you think you would rather have lived:

Would you wish to go back to ancient empires with slavery and superstition, with conquering armies and captive peoples? (It has such a modern sound, but without the modern conveniences!)

But this, perhaps, is too far back. Perhaps you’d rather have lived “when knighthood was in flower.” If your information is based on fairy tales and fiction, perhaps you would, but if it is based on document and fact, perhaps you wouldn’t. Sincerely we think you wouldn’t like to have lived in those days. But should you decide to go back there, leave your finer senses and common comforts behind, for you will surely find them out of fashion. And leave behind, especially, your love of liberty⎯for it was not a time of free men.

But maybe you would choose to share your lot with our pilgrim and pioneer parents. Much of what we have we owe to them. But would you like to face the bearing and rearing of children without the possibility of medical help, whether you needed it or not? Would you like to be old in your thirties, as pioneer mothers often were; and make every shred of cloth and clothing, and wrestle with nature for the sustenance of every day? They were days of courage, conviction, and accomplishment⎯but would you rather have lived then?

We know you could name a long list of things that you wish were not a part of the present picture. But that would always have been so. And never, we think, would you find back there more that could make people happy than now you see.

Of course there are many things you would change about your time of life, and rightly you hope for a heaven on earth that would bring together all the good of all the ages. But if you had to change all you now have for all you could have had at any period in the past, you wouldn’t go back⎯unless we are much mistaken. So be grateful for living now, and don’t feel too sorry for yourselves. Make the most of what is good, help to change what is bad, and thankfully live “the time of your life!”