How have you been? Are you ready to “lose” an hour this weekend? I’ve always found it curious “Daylight Savings Time” – what is actually being “saved”? We can’t really manipulate time. Aren’t we just, essentially, lying to ourselves?
One thing that doesn’t lie however is Time. Yes Time – with a capital “T”. When we’re young, Time can seem to last forever: How long until school is out? How many more days until Christmas/my birthday? (Yep, I was that kid). When we’re young, most of us feel like we have all the time in the world. Perhaps someone has aspirations about things to go see or do “one day”. As we move through life, we get busier and busier and Time begins to fly by us. The things we wanted to do “one day” become “someday, not now”. Sadly, if we aren’t careful our “one day” aspirations will turn into “if only…”
I came across a LinkedIn post by Paul Armson, an English chap I follow, who wrote a story about a recent trip he took with his father. I’ll summarize his post: Paul’s 91-year-old dad made a comment on places he’s never been to in England but always wanted to see such as Cornwall. Paul’s dad and mum always said, “One day we’ll do this. One day we’ll do that”. But Paul’s mum died when she was 59 (not too far off from my own Dad’s age of passing, now that I think about it). For the past 30+ years, Paul’s dad couldn’t ‘do the stuff’ he had planned to do in retirement, at least not the way he had hoped, because his wife was no longer with him. Paul noticed that his father’s words had changed from “one day” to “if only… if only”.
To finish the story, Paul decided to finally take his dad on a trip to visit Cornwall. On their trip Paul heard the words “If only your mum were here to see this” many times.
The takeaways Paul stated from his post, and my reason for sharing with you:
- Life is NOT a rehearsal. You don’t know how long you’ve got. Do stuff NOW.
- Live your life so you never have to say “if only I had”.
- If you have elderly parents [or other family members, neighbors, or friends], make sure you spend time with them NOW while you still can.
If you want to check out the whole story yourself:
When our daughters were born, Heather and I talked about things we wanted to do with them “one day”. As Rachel reminded me recently, “Dad, you know I’ll be in High School in a few months, right?” I realized that “one day” is about to slip by me if I let it. I’ll alter Mr. Armson’s final takeaway to: If you have loved ones (young or old), make sure you spend time with them NOW while you still can!
Please remember that we are “here” and available for you as well. If you have any questions or concerns, financial or otherwise, please do not hesitate to call or email. If you have friends, family, or neighbors you feel would benefit from a conversation with me, I’m more than happy to have a call or jump on a Zoom meeting with them.
As always, I hope that you are doing well, and staying safe & healthy!