Such a cliche’!  How many times do we hear this or utter it?  Usually when we’re giving ourselves an excuse to do something not so good for us. Ice cream?? Sure, life is short!  Another beer?  Life is short.  The phrase exhorts us to seize the moment and enjoy as time is finite and your time for beer may be shorter than you think.  Besides using it as an excuse to imbibe when do we really think about it?

We come to the very real and sobering realization of how tenuous our time is when one of two things happen.  Our most brutal and visceral knowledge we gain when we lose someone we love.  Nothing leaves you wishing for more time and aware of how little there is than someone close to you dying.  Most of us don’t spend the time we have with our families thinking of their ultimate demises.  We push it away as morbid if and when we do.  Sometimes, we’re lucky enough to be saying goodbye to someone who’s lived a long life, but more often than not, it’s a life cut short.  This is when the actual reality of how little time we have settles in.  The absence of time…moments we could have spent together now lost makes that real.

The other is when you, yourself are faced with your own mortality.  Many of us have had brushes with death.  Car accident survived, a cancer scare, other medical emergencies…events like this stop you in your tracks.  Nothing, and I mean, nothing will make you reevaluate your life like death.  I’m sure there are some people who walk away from the experience and just say. “whew, lucky me!” and go on like nothing happened.  Most people I’ve talked to have come away from the experience profoundly changed.  I know I was.

I had a blood clot in my leg that broke apart and a part of it moved into my heart.  My heart stopped for a few seconds before the clots broke up and settled into my lungs.  Don’t believe the “slight pressure in your chest” bullshit about heart attacks.  It literally felt like a horse kicked me in the center of my chest.  So, I am a very very lucky woman.  My heart could have been clogged to badly and never had started again.  My lungs could have been compromised to the point I stopped breathing. ( I was barely able to breathe as it was) The clots in my lungs could have traveled to my brain and I could have had a stroke.  I spent a few days in the hospital and have been recovering from the experience ever since.  Physically, I’m doing quite well.  In every other way, emotionally, spiritually, you name it, I’ve been changed.

Life is so very short.  Think about that.  Think about how few minutes you really have.  Most of you are close to my age, but whatever your age take a realistic look at how many years you may have left.  How many days.  And realize, that’s the best-case scenario.  None of us are guaranteed a single second more.  Now, look at your life.  Take stock and see what’s important to you…who’s important to you. Take a discerning look at what brings you joy and what brings you pain.  How do you want to spend your precious remaining time?  Life is short.  What are you going to do about that?