Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sydney J. Harris

This really hit home with me today. I’ve often let my dreams go, deferred to time, to others, to an idle mind . . . TV.  This is no way to live, letting life slip by, time and possibility sifting through your fingers like grains of sand.

Time stops for no one, but, as Emily Dickinson said, “Because I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me.” I do not wish to let time and death find me at my last moment having lived a wasted life, a life of no purpose, a life full of deferred dreams and regrets that render me inconsolable. Each day is a gift, a precious chance to seize time, seize dreams, seize the chance to be one’s best self, to make a difference, change something, fulfill the promise within.

So I want to live. And live well and with purpose. But most of all, I want to live with no regrets for those things I did not do, and as Thoreau, I do not wish to come to the end of my life and find that I have not lived.

I encourage you and me to consider what future we want, how we want to find ourselves when reflecting in that last moment, and to take action to change any wrong course, to find the source of our happiness, to live present and with purpose. So live . . . Today is a gift, your present. Do not squander so valuable a thing as time. Here’s wishing you a dream not deferred. :)

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