In the busyness of modern life it’s easy to find a reason to put off doing or saying something and most of us are pretty good at it …..
We assume that we have plenty of time to call the good friends who are in our thoughts. So we wait.
We assume that it will one day feel safer to tell people how we really feel. So we wait.
We believe that in order to forgive the people who have hurt us that it is they who need to make first contact. So we wait.
We feel too ashamed or too stubborn to admit culpability for the things we’ve said or done. So we put off apologising.
If we are not very careful, we could spend our whole lives finding excuses to put things off until a ‘more appropriate time’, only to come to the realisation one day that the appropriate time we’ve been waiting for still hasn’t arrived.
Most of us would rather not acknowledge that our days on Earth are limited. The truth of the matter is that none of us ever know how many days we have left. We can however be fairly sure of the fact that in our final moments we won’t be saying “I wish I’d waited longer to put aside my anger, and I wish I’d waited longer to forgive my friend/family/myself and I wish I’d waited longer to give my full attention to those I love”.
Most of us will get to the end of our lives and, provided we are given the time, say, “I’m sorry”. “I forgive you”. “I love you”.
“There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.” Terry Prachett
Today is our chance to live and love, to decide what really matters and to avoid looking back with regret. Each moment of today is our only guaranteed opportunity to be kind, thoughtful, compassionate, understanding and forgiving.
What have you been meaning to do ? What have you been meaning to say, and to whom ? What are you waiting for ?
Be brave
Jacqueline
