I posted this a long time ago, I hope you enjoy it, the lesson is a powerful one.
No matter how many time management books we read, lectures we attend or podcasts we listen to, we never can plan for the unexpected. We are all familiar with the phrase “Life is too short,” but do we know how short is can be? Absolutely not, so I believe we need to try to live life to its fullest everyday. This sounds wonderful, but realistically it is not something that we can do very easily. Why? Because we are so focused on what we need to get done that we often are missing out enjoying the very moment we are in.
I was reminded recently of a trip that I took with my cousin to visit our aunt a couple of years ago to the east coast. Now my aunt is one of those people who attract people to her because she glows with the ” love of life” and everyone is attracted to those people who have found this secrete. Getting back to the story; we had tickets to the ballet and were going to be attending with woman neighbor friend of my aunts at the Kennedy Center in D.C. for Saturday evening.
On Friday evening, upon us returning home from dinner, there was a message on my aunt’s home phone from her friend stating that she was on her way home from work and wasn’t feeling too well and she was going to drop the ballet tickets off and put them under the mat of my aunt’s porch and asked that we invite another neighbor to go on Saturday in her place because she was feeling poorly.We felt bad that this woman did not feel well, but did call another neighbor to invite her instead.
Later that evening we sat on my aunt’s winter porch and watched a summer storm blow in, the lightening was amazing and then the fireflies came out. Then suddenly a fire truck came around the corner and went up the street, we were curious as to what was going on, but it went around the corner and soon we saw it come back, not speeding or having its sirens on, so we didn’t think much about it.
A few hours later an ambulance came round the corner and disappeared up the street, but again it was not speeding or no sirens. We went to bed late and upon waking up the next morning my aunt receive a phone call from a neighbor letting her know that this woman the one that was originally to attend the ballet with us, had died. Wow, she died less than 12 hours from her dropping the tickets off on my aunt’s porch. We sat stunned and saddened by this event.
As the day went on it was like we were in a fog, with the wonderment of how short life can really be, and that no one knows how much time they really have been given. That night as we sat watching the ballet, we could not shake the fact that “Ingrid” was not with us and how she was so alive just the night before, she had no idea that the reason she would not be able to make the ballet would be because she no longer would be alive.
When we went to the Kennedy Center gift shop after the ballet we found silver bracelets that had engraved on them “live today like it is your last” and of course we each purchased one and still wear them today as a reminder of how brief our lives are, just a vapor, and we must learn to make the most of each moment as we never know when our last will be.
“This is it…there are no dress rehearsals in life as we know it”
Technorati Tags: time management,life management,practice management,enjoy life,live in the moment
08/19/14
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