I sometimes wonder why so many of us live as though we have all the time in the world.
Not consciously.
If asked, most people would agree that life is short. We know it intellectually. We attend funerals. We lose parents. We watch our children grow up. We feel our own bodies changing.
We know the clock is ticking.
And yet we behave as though there will always be another year.
Another opportunity. Another chance to start.
We postpone the things that matter most.
The painting. The book. The business. The conversation. The trip. The apology.
The life we secretly want. Not forever.
Just until things settle down. Until the kids are older. The work becomes less demanding. Just until we have a little more money or until the timing feels right.
The problem is that life has a habit of replacing one excuse with another.
There is always something. A bill. Responsibility. A crisis. An obligation.
If we wait for the perfect moment, we often end up waiting for the rest of our lives.
I don't think most people are lazy. I think most people are frightened. Frightened of failure. Of embarrassment. Of discovering they aren't as talented, brave or capable as they hoped.
So they postpone the attempt.
The tragedy is that failure is rarely the thing that hurts us most. It's regret.
Years later, the failed business becomes a story. The failed relationship becomes a lesson. The terrible painting becomes part of the journey.
But the things we never attempt remain unresolved. They sit quietly in the background asking the same question.
What if?
Perhaps that's why I paint. Not because I'm confident. Most days I'm not. Not because I know what I'm doing.
Most days I don't.
I paint because I have become increasingly aware that time is not an unlimited resource.
None of us are getting younger. None of us know how much time remains.
At some point, the future we keep imagining becomes shorter than the past we've already lived.
That changes things or at least it should.
Maybe the goal isn't to live forever, it's to stop behaving as though we will.
To stop standing at the edge waiting for certainty and postponing the things that make us feel alive.
To stop assuming there will always be another opportunity.
There might be. Then again, maybe not.
The irony is that once we accept life is finite, it often becomes more meaningful.
Not because success is guaranteed but because tomorrow isn't.
What are we waiting for?
If not now, when?