In case you haven’t noticed, life is short.
I’ve been on this earth for a few years now, and I don’t claim to know everything, but I have gathered this much: Life is short. If you don’t believe me, go to a funeral.
It doesn’t even have to be the funeral of someone you knew. Just go. Just say you knew them from work, sit quietly, listen and pay attention.
You will hear people talk about an entire life in less than an hour. Childhood. School. Work. Marriage. Children. Church. A few funny stories. A song. A prayer. Then everybody goes to the fellowship hall to eat the same foods that took the life of the person we just buried.
That was somebody’s whole life.
Whether you live into your thirties, your fifties or become one of the blessed few who make it past 100, your time here is short in the grand scheme of things. And boy does it move fast.
Consider some of the things you said you wanted to do. It probably feels like you said it a few months ago. No, you said that in 2016.
You were going to start exercising, open that business, visit that person, get out of debt, travel, return to school, write that book or marry that woman. At this point, she may have married somebody else. You took too long.
Even the little things are still waiting on us. Why are those clean clothes still sitting in a pile? Why haven’t you changed the oil? Those tires should have been rotated months ago. Your car is riding around bowlegged because you keep saying, “I’m fixin to do it.” What’s a “fixin”?
Some goals require years, but imagine where you might be today if you had started when the idea first came to you.
Maybe you wanted to learn Spanish so you could communicate better with the people you work with. I don’t know what it is. It could be anything. What are you waiting for? Permission?
Fine.
I, Kennedy Alexander Robertson (my full legal name) give you, ____________________, permission to do the thing.
There. It is official now.
Life is too short to spend all of it waiting, and it is definitely too short for some of the arguments we keep having. We fight over political parties, social media posts, old misunderstandings, and grudges so old that nobody remembers how they started. We refuse to forgive, refuse to apologize and sometimes refuse to love people because being angry makes us feel powerful.
You have an expiration date. So do I. We don’t know what it is, but it is printed somewhere we cannot see.
That is not supposed to make you afraid. It is supposed to make you honest.
Develop your gifts. Use your talents. Care for your neighbor. Forgive quickly and often. Tell people you love them while they are still here to hear it. Stop saving your best ideas, your best clothes and your best self for some perfect day that may never arrive.
Whether you are 7 and just got to Earth or 77 and planning to stay until 107, go for it.
Make the phone call. Read the book. Take the trip. Ask for forgiveness. Say yes when you mean yes. Say no when you need to say no.
Let’s live! For ourselves, for one another and for the chance to leave this world a little better than we found it.
Life is short.
Please don’t wait until somebody else’s funeral to remember that.
Kenny Robertson, an educator and comedian, is a native of Ridgeway.