626 words this morning. Better than yesterday, but fewer than what I was hoping for. Manuscript total of 68,131 words.
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
– Pablo Picasso
Ah, this human life. When born into all the privileges we have in a modernized nation — simple things like electricity, clean water, a safe shelter, plus rarer things, like human rights as a woman and as a gay person — the quantity of options available to us are nearly endless. To paraphrase my most beloved Buddhist monk, “When so many options are available to us, how do we choose something that will make our lives truly meaningful?” But in nearly the very next line after posing that question, he reminds us that the Lord of Death is stalking us all. What is guaranteed is that our time will come one day; what we have no control over is the manner and time of our death.
So what are you putting off today? Writing your novel? Painting a masterpiece? Reconciling with someone who was once a friend?
All that privilege is also dangerous for us. It is easier than ever before to waste our precious time on this Earth with nothing but — as one blogger put it — arguing with each other and watching cat videos.
Life is too short to waste time.
One last quote for you today:
It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. … The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life”
I know myself. I am far from perfect. Probably like many of you out there, I get into a set of good habits for a while…. and then I fall off the wagon. And then I get back on. And then I fall off. I’m not claiming that this time is going to be different — after all, yesterday’s progress report showed that even the great John Steinbeck struggled with his laziness sometimes (though I’m willing to bet what he calls “laziness” and what I call “laziness” are probably separated by an ocean!). But as I used to tell my meditation students, it doesn’t really matter how many times we lose the thread of our breath; what matters is how many times we come back to it.
So that’s my encouragement to you today — if you’ve fallen off the wagon, don’t waste time beating yourself up, just get back on it. If you’re on it, stay on for as long as you can. Because life is short. And we all have important work to do.
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