I got my second COVID-19 shot two weeks this past Wednesday. The CDC believes that it takes two weeks for the second shot for Morena and Pfizer to full effectiveness. The second shot of the Morena vaccine didn’t come with any guarantees. Of course, not much in life comes with absolute assurance.

When I was waiting for 15-minutes after my second shot, I read over the sticker that they put on the second dose. I understood the issue of the lot number of the Moderna vaccine and the date it was administered. However, I wasn’t sure what EXP: 12/31/2069 meant. The best that I could determine was that the vaccine would expire at the end of 2069. Another possibility is that whatever the benefit that I will obtain from the shot will expire by the end of 2069. I don’t think that it will be when I expire.

Nonetheless, this essay is about my psychological and physiological effects upon me. I didn’t have any adverse effects of from either dose other than my left arm was sore for a couple of days. It might have been due to having both injections above my Picasso-esque tattoo of Don Quixote and Ginger.

That being said, I felt invigorated especially two weeks after my second shot. I’ve danced with death twice thirteen years ago. In the first part of 2008, I had prostate cancer, which had gotten outside the prostate. A couple months later, I fell off a ladder and hit my head on a retaining wall, which caused a subdural hematoma (traumatic brain injury).

In both cases, I addressed both issues and essentially have recovered. While I wouldn’t want to replicate either dance, I wouldn’t delete either from my life.

We all know that we are immortal. However, that is an intellectual insight. Having done those two dances, I grasp that truth in my gut. Even though I was driven prior to either dance, I have a far more purposeful life due to fully understanding my clock is ticking.

Gilgamesh

I have a couple dozen mentors in my life. One of them was Gilgamesh who went on this quest to find immortality. After years on his holy quest, he discovered that immortality wasn’t possible. Once he realized that truth, he said, “Forget death and seek life.”

Gilgamesh learned that living one’s life with of purpose of helping others provides the immortality of helping others. It has been nearly 5,000 years since the time of Gilgamesh and nearly everyone in the world remembers him.

Bobby Kennedy

In my lifetime, Bobby Kennedy said, the same thing that Gilgamesh understood. “We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in an endless amassing of worldly goods… The gross national product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

The coronavirus reminded me that my clocking is ticking, and I don’t know how many more miles lie ahead for me before I sleep. What I do know is not to waste the time that I do have.