Time Doesn't Care!

Have you ever walked through a cemetery or happened upon the newspaper’s obituary section and taken a moment to ponder that small, seemingly insignificant piece of punctuation between the date of someone’s birth and the date he/she has left this earth? This undersized symbol is often overlooked because focus is inevitably on the dates themselves. Yet that little line…that little “dash” ultimately represents every step we take on earth, every breath we breathe and all of our life’s actions.

In the “slice and bake” mentality of the 21st Century, we have allowed ourselves to become so hurried and pressured that we forget, or better yet – conveniently ignore – the fact that this little line is not infinite; it begins and in just a short distance, comes to an end.

The only way to learn to fully cherish each day is to deal-in-real and accept the fact that we don’t know the day when we will run out of tomorrows. If you are troubled by this concept, or believe it to be a morbid perception, then you are in denial. Until this epiphany awakens your senses, and you can talk about death as a reality, and grasp the brevity of this dash with which you have been blessed, true appreciation for life cannot begin. When we are born and we take that first, independent, deliberate breath into our lungs, we are signing an invisible contract with life…that we will do everything we can to preserve, cherish and LIVE it! By seizing and inhabiting our moments and living our dash, in lieu of simply existing, we are abiding by that first unspoken oath.

Sure, every dash has its share of troubles and woes, but time doesn’t care. It moves on, regardless. If we spend our limited time on earth focusing on nothing but our problems, we subconsciously disregard all that is not a problem. When we postpone living until everything is running smoothly and efficiently in our lives, we forfeit the minutes of our now. When we spend current hours regretting yesterday and worrying about tomorrow, we often fail to recognize the day between those two…

I wrote in my new book: “Live in your now; be conscious, sincere.  Let your mind allow you to be in your here!”  Instead of focusing on your next achievement or acquisition, focus on the present, the blessings all around you, the loved ones in your life and the sheer pleasure found in just being.
 
Excerpt to ponder from my poem: The Dash:
 
“For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.”