How Long a Life Are You Promised?
By: Kavita Agarwal
Tags: Awakening, Life, Lifestyle, Awareness, Life Lessons

How Long a Life Are You Promised?

Live each day as though it’s your last! Have you heard this statement before?

I have actually lived it. I met with an accident two years ago, one that would have made it my last day on Earth. I was lucky, I survived it. Let’s not get into the how and why of it, let’s focus on what I learnt from it. Any moment can be your last moment of Life. That is how unpredictable life is. One moment here, and the next moment, gone!

This incident in my life, made me question myself a lot. What if I would have really died that day? Have I made full use of this life that I have received? What about all my dreams and desires that I have been postponing? When is the right time to follow my dreams? All the things left unsaid and deeds that I still want to do, and have left unfinished? It made me ponder deeply about what Life really is. And the answer I got was ‘This is the only Life we have’, ‘Now is the only moment in which you can Live’, whatever you want to do, ‘Now is the time!’.

Once the moment passes, you can never get it back. One moment from the future, is yet to arrive. Any change or action that you want to accomplish, ‘Now’ is the time. All you can do about past moments, good and bad, is learn from them. All you can do about the future, is to plan to make full use of them. It is only this moment ‘Now’ that you can actually do anything in: the action is to be taken – Now. We want to keep procrastinating doing things, waiting for the right time, for everything to be perfect, that’s when we want to do them. But do we know for sure that till everything is perfect according to our expectations we will be around then to do the things we want to say or do? We are never sure of how long a time we still have left. We are not even promised the next moment, and we plan our next day with so much conviction. This incident in my Life was an eye-opener for me. It made me realize the importance of time, the importance of Now. Since that day forward, every time I want to do something or meet someone I immediately put a time-ticker on it. I religiously follow my commitments; even when something urgent comes up, I reschedule it immediately. Every time I remember someone, I make it a point to call them and let them know, and it so happens that the person has something to share with me, or has been thinking of me too. I get more things done in my day than ever before. And I now enjoy every moment of being alive! I have truly started living my life after this incident, before that all I did was procrastinate life itself.

Well, my question to you is, are you aware of how long you are going to live? Are you actually living the life you want to? If not, then when do you plan to start living your life? The way you want to? Or are you planning to just flow through life, waiting to see where you land up? Do you think if you set a goal of where you would like to see yourself in the future, you might land up closer to it rather than just flowing through each day aimlessly? When you plan to go for a vacation for a week with your family, how much planning do you put into it? Where do you want to go? Where will you stay? What all activities you will do there? So much planning for a week. What about all the years you will live ahead? Have you planned for that? Well, it’s never too late to start!

Promise yourself that from today onward, you will start to take charge of your life and be responsible for the direction that it leads you in. You alone are responsible for everything that happens to you. It is your choice. Everything that happens to you is your choice, or the result of your choices. So make better choices, to live a better life.