History Repeating

While reading through some old Hebrew poetry today (and yes, I am a nerd) I began to think about how history repeats itself. The poem I was reading dealt specifically with death and making the most of life while you are young. People have been grappling with this issue since the beginning of mankind. It's something that never changes, each generation has to face the same problems. There's nothing we encounter that someone else hasn't come across in the past. We struggle with our mortality, our family, our jobs, just like folks have for ages. The details change and the combinations of our individual struggels make our experience unique, but we are all united by our challenges. This doesn't trivialize our circumstances but should give us hope. If someone else faced this in the past maybe they made it through, and maybe we can too. We can read about their experiences in their poetry and stories and learn from their mistakes and triumphs. We reap the benefits of their experience, as those who come after us can hopefully learn from us. It never ceases to amaze me that someone who lived 3,000 years before I did, struggled with the same things that I do and wrote poetry that expresses exactly how I feel today. I guess history does repeat itself...