In a broader and more solemn sense, all the disquietudes of man—his restlessness, his misgivings, his aching hunger for certainty—are the common inheritance of our mortal condition. Whether he be prince or peasant, scholar or shepherd, none is exempt. Life, much like the sky under which we pass our days, is fickle—at times radiant with promise, at others brooding with unspoken storm. No man can chart the hour of his departure, nor predict the shape in which death shall call; it may come in the silence of sleep or the roar of calamity. We walk, each one of us, under a veil that obscures not only the future, but often our very understanding of the present.

Our judgments, too, are fallible—our so-called wisdom, that fragile flame we prize so highly, flickers in the winds of circumstance. A man’s discernment may be no brighter than the lantern of a traveller in a dense fog; and how heavily it is swayed by the unseen hand of his bodily health. A fevered brow or a weary limb can colour the soul’s outlook with shadows that have no place in the sunlit truth.

Youth, that brief and golden springtime of the soul, visits us but once, and with it come moments pregnant with possibility. These do not knock twice at our door. Or if by strange mercy they return, they seldom find us in the same place—or with the same strength to receive them. Like the tides that rise at appointed hours, opportunities ebb as swiftly as they flow, and he who fails to launch his boat may find the shore empty when he returns.

Therefore, let us labour with the diligence of the wise farmer, who watches the skies and hastens to bring in the harvest while the sun still smiles upon the fields. The sluggard, who dallies in idleness and whispers to himself, “Tomorrow shall suffice,” soon awakens to a field drowned by rain and dreams lost to rot. One must strike when the iron is hot—not because haste is always wise, but because delay is so often ruin.

To work while strength remains, to seize the moment before it slips like water through the fingers—this is not mere pragmatism, but an act of reverence toward the gifts we have been lent. For health and vitality are not permanent residents in this house of clay; they are, at best, honoured guests, who will one day take their leave without warning.

And when that day comes, may we not be found in regretful idleness, but rather in the peace of one who spent his strength faithfully—who gathered his harvest while the fields were green, and who, though weary, is rich in the fruit of his labour.