Welcome to the Procrastinatorium
Uploaded by teapotica on Mar 05, 2001
While I'm sitting here at my computer, in my air conditioned home, with the radio blaring and the t.v. on downstairs, I try to imagine how life was as a young Puritan. To be honest, I don't think I could live a week the way they do. I could try but it would be excruciatingly difficult.
The Puritans didn't have all the luxuries we have today. They were told many things by preachers such as Jonathon Edwards, who lit a candle of fear in their minds. If I was alive to hear Edwards preach, I'd certainly have to question myself. He preached that God holds us in his hands and he can make or break us. If God decides it so, he will let us go and we will fall from his hands to nothing but Hell. Certainly no one wants to go to Hell. So, the Puritans tried to better their lives, and go by rules or "resolutions." They believed if they followed these resolutions, even though their fate was predetermined by God, they could live a life of good and maybe prove they are meant to go to Heaven.
One of the many detailed resolutions they had to follow was "To think much, on all occasions, of my own dying and of the common circumstances which attend death." I certainly would be frightened to think of dying every second of the day. I'd be paranoid, looking around, thinking how I would die, what would happen to me after I die. I don't think I'd be a happy person to be around. I often wonder how many Puritans walked around day to day thinking about "I could die today!"
The other resolution, similiar as above, "Never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life." When I was in class, I actually tried to think what I would actually do, if it was the last hour of my life and if what I was doing then, is what I would actually do. I think I'd have a lot more to say, I'd speak my mind more. I once thought, if I was on an airplane that was crashing, what I would do. I think I'd write. I'd write my finals words in my journal which I always carry and then close my eyes. Nothing more, nothing less. But, I wouldn't actually...