I hear “all good things must come to an end” almost as often as I hear the equally untrue “what comes up, must come down.” The Mars Rover went up and never came down. And what is up, anyway? It’s all relative.

Someone recently asked me, “Why must all good things must come to an end?” First of all, not all good things come to an end. Most do. But some don’t… there are exceptions. Secondly, it is precisely that they do end that makes them good.

As the t-shirts say, life is good. But life is only good because it’s finite. Each day has a value because each of us is given a short life. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. If we lived for ever, our days would have no value and thus our life would become a living hell. Too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing.

Of course, I’d venture to say that even the bad things are “good” in the sense that they are necessary steps on our respective and collective journeys, but that’s an entirely different all post together.

But alas, not all things end. While the clock is ticking towards our inevitable deaths, the deaths of our loved ones and the death of the universe as a whole, there are elements of our Self that transcend time and space. I believe that a part of us exists beyond this physical world, existing in the realm of the eternal or timeless.

So, sure, most good things come to an end. And it’s exactly because they do end that they are good.