No but really. Did she ever really learn to use punctuation?

"If you are pitched into misery, remember that your days on this earth are counted and you might as well make the best of those you have left."
- Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

Rather than post this quote and move on from it, leaving the reader wondering why I posted it and what it means to me, I'm going to take a few minutes out of my night, accompanied by wine and mindless television, to tear this quote apart and truly to analyze it for what it's worth.
First question: What makes this quote so important to me? Other than the fact that it's written by a Spanish man currently residing in Canada (which proves to me that there are other people in other parts of the world who have the same flow of thoughts that I do) who is fluent in several languages and comforting to me because of his ability to relate every novel he writes to my life (and I'm sure plenty of other lives as well), it's not a corny quote fed to me via film or propaganda, jazzed up with a nice set of polished actors, or through a musician who sings of one idea and then wastes life away with alcohol, drugs and money. Okay, the alcohol I understand. But money? Pffft. Money. I'll get to that idea another day. But no, this quote isn't dressed up, spread from person to person via facebook, accompanied by less than 3 hearts, by girls whose photos are of them making a kissing gesture to the camera while mindlessly holding up a piece sign. "Live every day like it's your last". Give me a fucking break. If I lived every day like it was my last, I'd be unemployed, uneducated, and a bum (Because who in their right mind would want to work, school and worry about their bank account on their last day of life). It's completely irrational to live by a quote that promotes so much lazyness and complete apathy because, alas, life does go on and as annoying and inconvenient it is, it's a necessity that you go through the basic motions. You need money, you need a job, and you need to be educated, not only for the main reason that people need something to anchor them down and to keep them sane, but also so that when it becomes necessary to start living your last days, you have the recources to do so.
Second question: Why is this quote better than the other Carpe Diem quotes? And this is where we really get into the analyzation. (Drumroll commence, please) "If you are pitched into misery". What a beautiful way to put such an ordinary event. I didn't meander into Misery wondering "Oh hey what's going on in here?". Nope, I was pitched. "Remember that your days on this earth are counted". Martel doesn't bring any idea of religion into this quote. No man in the sky decides we are done and takes us away. He puts this part as simple as he can, because it's a simple part of life. You die, it happens. "You might as well make the best of those you have left." I can, without a doubt, picture him shrugging his shoulders while uttering this part of the quote, with complete reason and rationality. No need to mope. What would a rational person do when realizing, after they were thrown into misery, that one day they will die? Umm duh, try to make the best of it.  It's not wrapped in beautiful syntax and poetry. It's straight to the point.

And now a round of applause. I'm sure my senior year English teacher would be proud. Had she given me something such as this to analyze, maybe I would have been a better student. But Emily Dickinson
Is really - not the kind.
of person - That I,
can relate - to.