People often say life is short, I too am guilty of that saying - like the regurgitation of some text splashed across on a bumper sticker which you have seen way too many times, to the point where you actually believe it. Life is not short at all, really it is the longest thing you will ever experience - no one has returned from the dead to tell me otherwise. There is simply too much to fit into this time we are granted on this earth. We have way too much time to fuck up what time we do have here and not enough time to fix the things we fuck up. I'm one who has often said that I have no regrets in my life - the things I have done, the mistakes that I've made (which has been cleverly renamed experience), the choices I have made. They are not meant to be regretted; but rather these "experiences" have contributed to who I am today. While there is some truth in that, perhaps if I were to scrutinize my life I would hopefully have the courage to admit that I have some regrets. But like Frank Sinatra said in his song My Way "regrets I've had a few, but then again to few to mention.
Perhaps in this life we live long enough for the things we do out of youthful exuberance and in the pursuit of happiness to return to haunt us; and when the haunting begins there is just not enough time for redemption. We often base the judgment on the length of life when we feel that some one (usually someone young) has in our mind been cheated out of a few more years on their life. When an old person (and by old I mean someone to the age range of 70 - 90) dies, no one says - boy life too short look at how granny just die there; no, quite the contrary, you old, you have lived life; three scores and ten, right. But is living life determined by how long you take before you are faithfully departed? Is quality of life really determined by longevity? Did that 90 year old, die miserable, lonely, unfulfilled? Did they wake up every day asking the North Wind - what am I still doing here, why won't you take me? What is to say that at 20 or 30 years that someone has not lived a fulfilled life; would have lived more, contributed more in their "short" years as compared to the 90 year old.
Life is as long as it needs to be - what we choose to do with the time we are given is entirely different. Live life, don't be an observe to life - but don't use the notion of life being short as an excuse for a short lived life and silly decisions. Own and take responsibility for every aspect of your life - yes even the shitty parts. Mistakes will be made - chalk it up to experience, but the less "experience" you have in this life the less painful it is, the more it is worth living, the less you are focused on when the ride will end. Now here comes the not so easy part - living these words.
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