Some years ago, according to Tony Campolo, a survey was taken of a group of nonagenarians – people who had done a lot of living, and were probably better qualified to reflect on what life is about than most of those experts we see in television chat shows. They were asked, ‘If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?’ There were all sorts of answers but three kept constantly re-emerging. One was, ‘I would reflect more,’ meaning, I would think more about the meaning of my life. The second was, ‘I would risk more.’ In other words, I wouldn’t play it so safe if I could do it all again. The third was, ‘I would do more things that will live on after I’m dead.’
I guess they were really saying the same thing as Jesus, when he said: ‘What profit is there if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul.’