Life and Love: The Treasures of Time

A friend of mine is suffering from severe health complications related to a failed kidney (diagnosis update 3/9). I'm filled with grief, sorrow and dread as I watch/wait helplessly from the sidelines as her strength, vitality and body is stolen. She is normally a very healthy, vibrant, strong, athletic woman. It IS possible that she may fully recover, but there are no guarantees...

Daily I meet and talk with people who are so filled with fear, allowing fear of so many "what ifs" hold them back in life and love...from pursuing dreams and reaching goals. I constantly meet people who say, "There's always time tomorrow". 

What if there were no tomorrow? 

Imagine what kind of world this would be if any explorer had been held back in fear. What if Columbus had chosen to stay home safely nestled in his bed instead of venturing across unknown waters of the Atlantic? 

Fear is nothing compared to love! If you have love today, grab hold with all your might right NOW, because tomorrow may be too late!! All we have is right here, right now, this moment. Nothing we do will increase time. With each passing moment, we spend an ever decreasing precious commodity. 

The following 86,400 second meditation has circulated on the internet for a long time. I've found it posted verbatim on several sites without attributing author and in so, implying ownership and/or authorship. I did not write this, I don't know who did. I'm posting here for the importance of emphasizing living life to the fullest! Carpe diem! Seize the day! What are you waiting for? What is holding you back?

Imagine that in your life, there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. Now, it carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening, it automatically deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day – and you can’t get that money back, at any point. So what would you do? Of course you would draw out every dollar of it, every single day!

If you haven’t guessed already, each of us already has such a bank in our lives; except, instead of money that we are credited each day, the asset is time. Every morning your bank credits you with 86,400 seconds with which you can do whatever you choose. You can be as productive, functional, driven, and focused as you choose to be with each one of those 86,400 seconds.

And similarly, every night it writes off as lost assets whatever part of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance; it allows no overdraft, and it immediately takes away every dollar as you fail to properly or productively invest every day.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the previous day — no matter how badly you may want it, it’s something you will never get back. If you fail to use that day’s gift of deposits, the loss is yours, and the blame falls on you.

There is no going back to a previous day for a “do-over”. There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits, and you cannot be guaranteed anything but what you currently have. After all, tomorrow is not promised…

Invest it wisely every single day, so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success. Invest it poorly, and it is time wasted, time lost, experiences missed, and possibly – regrets felt. The clock is running…

• To realize the value of one year, ask a repentant prisoner about his time lost in jail, away from his family and his passions.
• To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a pre-mature baby how much that extra month of nourishment would have changed both of their lives.
•  To realize the value of one day, ask a daily wage laborer with kids to feed, who relies on the hope of new work every single morning to support his family.
•  To realize the value of one second, ask a person who was just involved in a serious accident – and was not lucky enough to miss it by a second.
•  To realize the value of one milli-second, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics. After working hard, day-in and day-out, for four years (or more), to miss out on a life dream by one milli-second is heartbreaking — and quite the reality check.

Treasure every moment that you have! Find the beauty and purpose in life with every activity in which you engage. I know – it’s difficult when you’re in line at the DMV, shopping at the grocery store, or waiting in traffic. But what if that were your last moment? How would you want to spend it? Time 
waits for no one.