Time's Ticking

Quote of the day: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that is why it is called the present." Oogway from Kung Fu Panda (as far as I know)

This whole thought process all started yesterday when I went and turned in my application for my passport. Passports have a lifespan of ten years, and then you have to renew them. I was thinking a bit about where I'll be in ten years... I'll be 29, graduated from college, hopefully married, maybe a kid or two. I might have written a best-selling novel by then. Maybe I'll have my chicken farm. A lot can happen in ten years. A decade may seem like a long time, but it really isn't. Ten years will fly by before you know it.

Then I was thinking some more... My beloved little dog will probably be dead in ten years, because he's 5 now. 15 years old is pretty stinkin' old for a dog. My grandparents are pretty old; they could be gone in ten years, too.

I calculated some times. I'm just about twenty now. If I live to be ninety, that means I only have seventy years left to live. That's:

840 months

3,640 weeks

25,550 days

613,200 hours

36,792,000 minutes

2,207,520,000 seconds

That's approximately how much time I have left to live. And that's assuming that I don't get in a car crash and die, or whatever. Now look at these numbers:

There are 8,760 hours in a year. Look how quickly those'll take away from that 613,200 hours.

There are 525,600 minutes in a year. Those'll subtract drastically from those 36,792,000 minutes drastically as well.

52 weeks each year will fly by and knock digits off that 3,640 weeks on its way out.

365 days in a year will quickly take away from those 25,550 days, too.

12 months a year will make huge dents in those 840 months.

What I'm trying to say is: LIFE IS SHORT!

When you're young and you're thinking about life, you may think that you have all the time in the world to do things. You think you have years to make yourself a better person. You think you have a lifetime to give the love you'd like to give to people. You think you have tons of time to spend with your family. You get depressed because when life gets hard the only thing you can think about is: it's so long. When will the misery end? WRONG! It could end at any second of any minute of any hour of any day!

Nothing can stop the minutes from ticking away. It goes on with or without us. Are we making it meaningful? Are we filling our short life with lasting memories that'll be cherished treasure, or are we stuffing our time with meaningless junk like playing too many video games, or watching too many movies?

Life is too short to waste it fighting. Get over it. Move beyond drama. Don't hold grudges. You've only got approximately 25,550 days to resolve conflicts, so DO IT. Let the small things pass; that is the meaningless junk I was referring to. Don't stress too hard; enjoy every day. Every day is a gift, and every day will pass.

Life is too short to just sit there. If you have goals and things you wanna get done, NOW, today, is the time to start working on them. The happiest of our memories are the ones when we were accomplishing something; when we were helping a friend; when we were learning and growing. Accomplishment makes a person very happy; depressed people are the idle ones.

We didn't come here to waste time. We came here to be tested. We came here to see how we would react to trials and how we would spend our time. Our time here is very limited, especially when you compare it to the ternities. What we do here--this short time on earth--will effect where we'll end up for all of eternity. Every choice has a consequence.

You only have one lifetime. There will only be one February 2, 2010. Each heart beat ticks away the fast-moving seconds. Are you spending it wisely?

Life is short. Life is precious. Stop being depressed and moping about how long it is, because it isn't; get to work! Get something done! Do something meaningful! Say the things you wanna say! Life is what you make of it. And NEVER EVER forget that: LIFE IS GOOD!