#10 Take a minute

It's 3:19 am and I'm up thinking about the school shooting in Newtown, CT.

I know we've all heard it a million times, but this saying is especially true right now: Cherish what you have while you still have it, because you never know when it might be taken from you.

While we'll never really be able to answer the question as to why this tragedy happened, there is something to learn from it just as there is something to learn from everything that happens in our lifetime. Take a minute. Breath. Reflect. Be thankful.

I've always made an effort to tell people how much they mean to me. I'm a hugger, and thankfully so are my friends, so I almost never leave them without a proper goodbye embrace. But, in my opinion, there is no better way to show someone how much you mean to them than by telling them directly. No matter how quick our conversation may be, I always end my phone calls to my parents with an "I love you." They've given me everything in this life, and if fate decided to take them away from me someday, I'd want to know that I'd expressed my love for them the last time we spoke.

I don't know if the parents of the 20 children that were killed all got to tell their children they loved them before school that day. And I'll never know. But my guess is that not all of them got the chance.

Maybe they were late to work, and in a rush to drop the kids off at school. Maybe they were too busy packing lunches and making doctors appointments and figuring out who was going to drive to gymnastics class. Maybe they had forgotten something really important back at home. Maybe they were already at work, and the kids got a ride with someone else to school.

Regardless, who knows if they got to say that final "I love you". And maybe you wouldn't have either. So maybe, regardless of how busy all of our lives our, we should take a minute and vocalize those three meaningful words to those that are important to us today.

And tomorrow.

And all the days after that.