time is a gift
be who you are!
Reminding ourselves each day that we will die helps us treat our time as a gift. Someone on a deadline doesn't indulge himself with attempts at the impossible, he doesn't waste time complaining about how he'd like things to be. They figure out what they need to do and do it, fitting in as much as possible before the clock expires. They figure out how, when that moment strikes, to say, Of course, I would have liked to last a little longer, but I made a lot out of what I was already given, so this works, too.
That quote is from p. 108 of Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way. Holiday is best known as a popularizer of Stoic philosophy. (If you’re not familiar with Stoicism, consider my podcast with Scott Smith on Stoicism and Seneca.)
I really like this sentiment. His point is not to belabor what we do not have or what we have lost, but instead to embrace what we have. Tomorrow I am interviewing David Krempels for the Flourishing podcast. David is the founder of the David Krempels Brain Injury Center (KBIC) where I am a board member. You can read David’s bio here (or wait for the pod to come out in a couple of weeks), but the short version of it is, David was hit by a truck and had a severe brain injury. It upturned his life and he was not the same person after. After a period of recovery, he used a part of the financial settlement he received to found what later became KBIC, where he helps other people re-establish their lives after brain injury. David’s motto is “You’re not who you were. Be who you are!” As I was preparing for my interview with David, I remembered I had clipped this quote from Holiday. So I wanted to share that today. What David did with his life after his injury is truly remarkable. He has touched thousands of lives, directly and indirectly. Would he rather not have been hit by a truck? I imagine so. But despite this tragedy, he went on to do more with what he had than most people do in their lives.
All of us will die. If we are lucky, we will live a good, long life and suffer the indignities of aging. Whenever I go to jiu-jitsu practice and see young guys bouncing back up after having been thrown or just being able to recover and practice more often than I can, I suffer a pang of jealousy. My body is not what it once was. If only I had continued training back then, I would be so much farther along my journey. But there is no re-do in life. You’re not who you were, and there is no going back. There is only being who you are now. There is no point in wasting time or emotional energy on what was or what could have been. There is only what you will do with the time you have left. A saying I have been quoting a lot since returning to jiu-jitsu, “The best time to plant an oak was 50 years ago. The next best time is today.”
I also like the practicality of this quote. Don’t waste time on the impossible. Focus on the possible. Focus on small wins. Move the needle a little at a time, but move it. We each have gifts and constraints. Time is one. Money, family, social status, all of these are facts. What we do with them, what we do with our gifts is the measure of our life.