So the other night I was driving home and my thoughts wandered to this one precarious, “morbid” idea: what would my funeral be like if I died?

I’ve had these thoughts before and they’re NOT rooted in any sort of “suicidal; longing to get out of here; I wonder if anyone would miss me and what would people say about me” type of attitude. Actually, weirdly enough, its more like a “what would I say to them; what would I want those whom I love to know; what words of comfort or ‘wisdom’ would I share” type of attitude.

See, when I was in high school I came up with this novel idea to film a video with my parting words, so to say. I still love this idea so much that I actually second guessed myself about sharing this with the mainstream public because I don’t want anyone else to steal my thunder. But that’s just me being honest.

Anyway, the other night as I was thinking about my most brilliant idea and I began to dialogue what it is I might say. I got to this one point where I naturally throughout the cliche of having no regrets. Then I stopped and wondered about the truth of that statement: could I Joe Crabb in some wierd, pseudo last will of testament honestly say that I have lived life with no regrets?

See the problem with that idea is that the word regret seems to carry this heavy weight to it. Nobody wants their eptiaph to read: “He was a man of many regrets and even fewer memories.”

After contemplating this idea little longer I came to the conclusion that I do not have any regrets but I do have things that I wish I would have done, some things that I will never have the opportunity to do again. I cannot say that I have this heavy weight of regret that eats away at my heart, just a few missed opportunities.

But that’s the thing: I feel as though a few missed opportunities could eventually become a bunch of missed opportunities and that in itself is the manifestation of regret.

The heart of this blog is that I wish that people could be and would be more comfortable with who they are and that they would “let their hair down” and have some good, clean, goofy fun. I was at the Rochester Fireworks this year and the best part of the night was when a group of friends and myself were dancing with all of our foolish might in front of the stage enthralled in the music and the absolute enjoyment of that moment. I loved it! I had the biggest grin on my face the whole time because no one cared about anything but dancing around and laughing til our sides hurt.

Too many times we’re too afraid or too uncomfortable or too self conscious to actually enjoy life, to actually engage or even create those moments of pure, lighthearted fun. So let your hair down and have a little fun, don’t let even the little opportunities to enjoy life slip past because they’ll add up and to put it in the words of the Hollywood…

“Every man dies not every man truly lives”

“I don’t want to survive, I want to live!”

and my favorite
“Don’t take life too seriously, you won’t make it out alive.”