Mark Twain said "the two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." In other words, every life has a purpose and we need to realize how our particular gifts can make the world better.
Hans Urs von Balthasar added a spiritual depth to this statement when he said "who you are is God's gift to you. What you become is your gift to God."
The life of every child is full of infinite potential. Perhaps this is why we smile when we see babies. Not only do they embrace life as a gift of great discovery, we also see in them the mystery of their own future greatness.
This truth was brought out in a tragic way by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel when he returned to the Auschwitz death camp with Oprah Winfrey. Babies and small children were exterminated upon arrival at the camp, but their clothes were left behind and are now on display. Each item tells the story of its owner. An overwhelmed Wiesel whispers to Oprah, "How many Nobel Prize winners died at the age of one...two? One of them could have discovered the remedy for cancer, for AIDS. The great poets. The great dreamers."
Each life is sacred, and we have the responsibility of fostering this truth of greatness in our young people.
Once we know that we are loved just as we are, we have the confidence for the second part of the challenge - discovering and developing our potential. This, however, does not end in childhood. In order for life to be fulfilling we need to be constantly evolving, growing, improving and arriving at deeper insights to life.
Christians share the story of the talents. A rich man gives three different sums of money to three servants and then goes away for a time. When he returns he finds that two of the servants made good use of the money and significantly increased the rich man's initial investment. He is very pleased. The third servant, the one who had been given the least to begin with, buried the money and simply gave it back to the rich man, who is furious about the servant's lack of initiative.
Each of us is talented in our own unique way. It is our responsibility to discover, embrace and develop these talents. In the workplace this allows us to provide excellent service, become better at what we are doing, and advance in our careers. Life is more than a career however, so as we take this attitude of constant improvement into every aspect of our existence, we live lives of meaning and of rapture. We can even accept our mistakes because we know that they are simply learning opportunities and that tomorrow we will be better.
This is why we are born. Self-discovery and growth never stop, regardless of our age or situation.
What we become is our gift to life itself.
