Column Chronicles: Are we better off than we were before we were not so well off?

Are we better off than we were before we were not so well off?

Frank Cotolo
March 5, 2015

On Sundays I reflect. After all, the Bible tells us that Lord rested on Sunday, though I am still wondering why the Lord became tired at all, no less how it took three whole days to create this planet. Perhaps the Lord takes His time and His time is not measured as we measure our time. After all, what is time to a Lord?

A Lord is eternal and that means, if nothing else, He doesn't have to push his clock back or ahead an hour at all.

Having a divine sense of time that way is a good state to embrace on Sundays, when you may sit back and reflect without any concern for time or what are the true definitions of "a.m." and "p.m."

So, on Sundays, I reflect, which is a stress less way of thinking, and without any effort, I understand things that usually take effort to comprehend.

I think about things we had, the way things were and how we are doing now and the way things are now compared to the way things were before I began comparing things.

Now is a strange time in our lives because we have things we never had before those things existed, things like smart phones and apps. Still, our fathers and grandfathers said in their days that they had things that they never had before those things were available. So every generation, it seems, can reflect on the question, "Are we better off than we were before we were not so well off?"

To judge now against how we were before we were not so well off, is to make unfair comparisons of two different times in which we had and had not. But before was once now and now will become before and then what?

Can now that becomes before be worse? Can before have been so bad that now, before it is before, be harmful? Maybe they are both important in their impact when they are not compared to now or before when before was now. So maybe we are no better off than before and no worse off than now.

Think of this - all you have just read is now before and what you are reading now is now.

Are you better off now than when you began to read this? Maybe you are not the one to judge. Maybe you should just shut up and stay out of trouble?

And if you want to be a good person, now is certainly the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. But would you have been better off if you came to the aid of that party before? What were you thinking by waiting so long? Did you think it would be better off to come now just because of an old saying? Or perhaps you don't want to come to the aid of any party that would have you as a member?

Maybe it is time for you to reflect on Sundays since you have so many questions. I'm going hunting.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.