Heaven

While I don’t think that there’s any possible way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a “life after death”, it certainly is a nice and comforting idea to think that those who have lived a good life and have, more often than not, done the right thing, will be rewarded with an eternal paradise after they die. To think that we will see our departed loved ones again once we cross over certainly fills one with a kind of hopeful warmth. I think, however, that the idea of heaven can make some people focus too much on the next life, and less about their current one. To feel the need to do good because you believe you will be rewarded, seems less genuine than doing good simply for the sake of the act of making our world a better place. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t act on your beliefs, regardless of the reasoning. If people make the world a better place, it doesn’t really matter to me why they do it. Growing up in a religious family, I used to firmly believe in the afterlife. I used to believe that I needed to pursue righteous acts because the reward once I died would be more wonderful than I could possibly imagine. Now, however, I still try my best to be a good person, but I try to do that for the sake of leaving the world in better shape than when I entered it. While I certainly hope that heaven is real, and that in the end I will go there, I just can’t be sure whether that will actually happen, or if death will be what the sinking feeling in my gut has always told me it is, a dirt nap. I know that sounds callous and cynical, but that’s just what I feel it is. Now, that can’t be proven either which is why I don’t completely rule the possibility of heaven out. I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t something that I’ve thought about a lot. However, ultimately I will continue to try my best to be a good person and make the world a better place. If it turns out that heaven is real, that will just be a pleasant surprise to realize that I will have been rewarded for all my efforts with a kind of bliss that I couldn’t possibly fathom with my mortal limitations.