When I was in my early 20s, I was trapped in an unhappy situation. In an attempt to console me, a well-intentioned but non-neutral third party gave me some advice: Life is short. Forgive, let go, and embrace whatever joy the situation had to offer, because when the opportunity is gone, it's gone.
At the time, I thought she was full of crap. However, bracketing the advice from the context, I think I'm starting to see her point. Life seems long when you think of it in terms of the 80 or 90 years that many of us can expect to have. There are elements of our lives that seem to last forever: family, cellulite, the antique chair handed down from your grandfather, the fruitcake in the freezer. But life is short when you break it up into episodes--the four years in high school or college, the one year you spent in your first job, your child's infancy, your years of living independently, the duration of a friendship, the thrill of falling in love.
We spend so much of our time distracting ourselves from the present. We kill time (I hate that sentiment!) and disengage from tasks and relationships that should be important. We tell ourselves that there will be time later, later, later, or that something better, something more worthy of our attention is sure to come along. Soon enough, there is no more time. The deadlines are upon us. People have moved on. We lose our opportunties to be exemplary, to learn fully, to love completely. We squander our present. What a terrible, terrible waste. Life is too short.
