It's Already Later Than You Think

"Time=Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life."
- ​Alan Lakein

It’s already later than you think.

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a patient that imparted the most beautiful wisdom to me about being in relationship. Relationship meaning all those people that we call family (whether blood related or not). She talked about the “plan” she and her husband of 20 years had for their life. Well, their “plan” was interrupted by his diagnosis with cancer and soon thereafter, his death. He was my age when he passed.

Some short time passed and she fell in love again and after four years with this lovely man, she came home to find him dead from a heart attack. In four short years, she lost two wonderful men. Now her mantra is “It’s already later than you think.”  

Image the grief of loosing two partners that you dearly love. Her courage and wisdom inspired this blog because she touches a very profound wisdom teaching of being very grateful for the people we have in our lives in this moment as things are impermanent, changing and it’s always later than we think.

The reason I feel compelled to write this is because many of the patients I treat, tend to forget this very fundamental reality of life. That it’s impermanent, changing and at some given moment we take our last breath. Holding grudges, resentments, and casting blame, keep each of us from this truth that it’s always later than we think. There are daily tragedies we can read about in the paper or watch on TV to remind us that life has a tenuous quality to it. It slips away.

Remembering that the human condition reflects imperfections, flaws, fallibilities, yet it is exactly these qualities that hold a treasure.  When we recognize such states arising within our relationships, be grateful. Be grateful, because life is asking you to expand and let go of our tendency to get angry, be resentful, judge, and criticize. Instead, breath because you still have the life force to do so (remember another person is taking their last) and think of all the good reasons this person, that you call “family,” is in your life.  

Life is short and it’s always later than you think. Be wise with your mind and practice gratitude for your family. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it does mean that you will feel good about your life and should the inevitable impermanence of life wonder upon your doorstep, you know you can greet it with humility and not regret. Be present. Be alive. Be grateful.