We let these things slide, the matters that are of the true importance. I feel it sometimes, being the Christian, that some of these decisions I make (often unthinking) have the gravity of a weight that I carry into eternity. Only afterwards, however, and most infrequently, do I reflect what import my will’s actions have had. If we do consider them, our choices, what do we find but that we are always wrong?: every last choice we make, however saintly they appear to be, there is at least some little part that was done in some kind of self interest, some kind of spite or flattery. We can never do the right thing for the right reason, these decisions that truly do matter, that make us what we are in this life and the next.

What are we to do? What things really have meaning for us? What do we believe? We ponder for hours on things that matter little, and then to the decisions that make or unmake a life, we toss at them answers at random. But can we — if it were given to us to reverse what we previously did wrong, ours to redeem ourselves for our past actions — would we do whatever is in our power to make things right? Do we see we must? For second chances we cannot ignore, when we do get such chances…. And one might see for only chances, those which cannot be undone, to remember the words of Jesus Christ: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” [Mark 8:36] We all get chances between the two: to get a little bit of soul, or a little bit of the world. Be ready. The choice might matter more that it appears.