Paradise

Chapter 3

Later on Manuel retires. For a while he enjoys the freedom of not having to wake up at a certain time and being able to use his time to do whatever he pleases. But soon he falls into depression: he feels useless, far removed from the society he has helped to build, abandoned by his now grown-up children, unable to understand the meaning of life – since he never bothered to ask himself the famous question: “What am I doing here?”

Well, one day our dear, honest, dedicated Manuel ends up dying.

“All of us at some moment have asked the same question as every other generation: “What is the most important thing in our existence?”

We want to use our days in the best possible way, for nobody else can live our lives for us. So we need to know where we should direct our efforts, what is the supreme objective to be met.

We are used to hearing that the most important treasure in spiritual life is faith. Many centuries of religion rest on this simple word. Do we hold faith to be the most important thing in the world? Well, we are quite wrong.

At that moment the great question for human beings will not be: “How did I live?” but rather: “How did I love?”

The final test of all quests for salvation will be Love. No account will be taken of what we did, what we believed in, what we achieved. None of this will be asked of us. What we will be asked is how we loved our neighbor. The mistakes we have made will not even be remembered. We will be judged for the good we have failed to do.

Because keeping Love locked up within ourselves is to go against the spirit of God, it proves that we never knew Him, that He loved us in vain, and that His Son died to no avail.”

In this case, our Manuel is saved at the moment of his death, because although he never gave any meaning to his life, he was capable of loving, providing for his family, and doing what he did with dignity. However, although it is a happy ending, the rest of his days on earth were very complicated.

Optimist and Pessimist both end up dying. But they each use their lives in a completely different manner.

So till my next post ya, its bye from Ganz.

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