We live as if we’ve struck a deal with time. As if the clock will hold still while we get around to the things that matter. We make plans for “next year” and tell people, “sometime soon.” We keep adding to a bucket list we rarely dip into. Deep down, we know we’re not promised anything. But we live like we are.
Someone once said to me, “You still have 40 years left.” It sounded reassuring at first. Safe. Like there was time to spare.
But then I heard it another way.
“You only have 40 summers left.“
That hit differently. Suddenly, 40 didn’t seem like so many. Not when you realize each one is a unique chance to feel the heat of the sun on your skin, to swim in a lake at dusk, to sit around a fire and stare at the stars.
Forty more times to watch the leaves burst into their final blaze of glory in the fall.
Forty more winters to feel that first bite of cold, to watch your breath in the air, to come inside and warm your hands on a mug.
Forty more springs to witness green shoot through the frost, to hear the birds return, to feel hope.
And maybe not forty. Maybe ten. Maybe five. Maybe… just one.
That’s the part we avoid thinking about. But we should.
We act as though we’re invincible. Like there will always be another chance. We delay dreams. We delay love. We delay the very things that make life worth living.
But what if this is the last morning you hear the birds singing outside your window? The last time the smell of coffee fills the kitchen? The last chance to tell someone how much they mean to you?
This isn’t pessimism. This is clarity. It’s the truth, stripped of its comforts.
You don’t know how many pages are left in your story. None of us do.
So live like it matters.
Live like today might be the final entry in the journal.
Say the words. Take the trip. Hug longer. Forgive faster. Risk looking foolish. Chase the things that stir your soul.
Because life isn’t measured by how long you live. It’s measured by how fully you show up for the time you’re given.
And right now is all you truly have.
Make it count.
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