For Tomorrow We Die – Sunday, May 24, 1942
In these days when many are looking fearfully toward the future, and when all of us are looking toward it with a good deal of uncertainty, there is a tendency on the part of altogether too many, especially those who are young in years, and immature in their thinking, to assume a fatalistic attitude—a tendency to shrug the shoulders and indulge, as they are wont to call it, in one “last fling”. Realizing the uncertainty of life, and, in their confusion, mistrusting tomorrow, they set about to crowd years into moments, to gratify appetites, to cut loose, so to speak.
It is a recurrence of the old and false philosophy—“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” That fallacious argument has been used in so many generations and by so many people, who needed or wanted justification for their indulgences, that one would certainly think by this time it would have lost its appeal, but it doesn’t seem to have done so.
This idea of having a “last fling” is all wrong. No man is ever going to have a “last fling.” Men are immortal, and a so-called “last fling” is just a step down on an eternal road, and there is no justification for any young man or anyone else, for that matter, no matter what immediate future he faces, to take the eventualities of life—that he is going to throw caution and decency to the winds, and break out on one grand spree.
After the portals of this life open and close behind us, we’ll still have ourselves to live with, and our record to account for. And neither here nor hereafter does anyone ever get the satisfaction out of a “last fling” that he thought he was going to. This kind of escape isn’t escape at all. It is merely a piling up of difficulties, a multiplying of disappointments, an increasing of disillusionment. Even if we were sure that there were only a little of life left to live, the way to live it wouldn’t be to break all the rules we know.
The only reasonable way would be to live so that no matter what the future holds we will have no regrets and no apologies to make for the past. There is no dignity, there is no satisfaction, there is no release, and there is certain remorse in setting out to have a “last fling.” When the stresses of life are great, and the future is uncertain, and when confusion is upon us, then is the time for sober thinking and not for careless living.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, May 24, 1942, over Radio Station KSL and the Nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1942.
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May 24, 1942
Broadcast Number 0,666