I have been having deep, serious thoughts about life lately. I came to realize that for the past few years, I have simply been waiting. Waiting for my life to begin.
Don’t be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.
~Grace Hansen
I have just been waiting around to become something else, something more. Waiting around for certain events to happen, or milestones to be reached. All the while, thinking I was on the verge of becoming, and only after those moments my life would begin. Sadly, each time a milestone passed, another something had to be dealt with, another goal had to be reached, keeping me from beginning my life.
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
~Fr. Alfred D’Souza
Reading this quote really struck me. It helped me put into words why I felt like such a bystander, just watching the days go by, always waiting for something else to happen to me, some big moment, or waiting to reach the next step in my life. I always seemed to be only one step away – waiting for things like: “when I graduate high school”, or “when I find the perfect girl”, or “when I finish college”.
The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to W.M. Lewis
Well, I’m done with college now, but I still feel the same as I did while still an undergrad. This all feels so ordinary; there must be something missing. Where’s my life I had imagined? I guess it must be “after I finish Grad school” or “after I start my career”. Yeah, that’s when my life will begin. I just need to finish school and find that perfect job…
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
~John Lennon
I find it’s all too easy to get caught up in the busyness of life, sticking to some daily routine, letting time pass, just waiting to reach some unknown destination. There is a deceiving connection between how we spend our time, and how little time we really have to spend. No, there is no other time than now.
Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of.
~Charles Richards
I am finding now, in glimpses and flashes, that my life begins each day. It is not one Big Moment, but rather a collection of a billion little moments and choices. This is it. Life is now. Normal daily life. It is experiencing everything that happens in each day.
As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do.
~Zachary Scott
I need to step back more often, and observe the life I have been creating all along, without ever realizing it. I need to make the most of each day, and live each moment – cherishing the time spent with friends and family.
Fear not that life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.
~John Henry Cardinal Newman
I need to remember that how I spend each day, adds up to how I spent my life.
I will hazard a prediction: When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection, narrating for only yourself, the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be the most compact and meaningful, will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
~Jeff Bezos
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