“I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”
Oh, Jimmy Buffet. Now there’s a guy who is living it right. Have you seen him lately? 68, perfectly tan, white hair, crinkly smile lines around his eyes, still silly, witty and all smiles. He’s sold millions of records, has had five books on the best seller list, has his own sail boat, two sea planes including a 1954 Grumman Albatross called “The Hemisphere Dancer“, a jet, and his own restaurant line which sell the largest margaritas on the planet. Awesome.
This week there’s been an underlying theme around me. Two friends of mine have been shocked by the ending of a life close to them. Unexpectedly, people who are close to us can just be gone. Similarly, this week we had a huge rainstorm here in Hawaii, the tail end of a hurricane. I spoke with an Indian family during the rainy day about going diving. Their little girls had made a connection with me and wanted to go out but it was my Friday and I wouldn’t be able to take them before they checked out and left Hawaii. We discussed the options of them diving another day with another guide, and their mother said, “Why not today? I know it’s raining and you said you cancelled your morning dive because conditions were not good out there. Would you go look again, please, just for us? I was thinking, why wait? The girls really like you and they trust you and it just seems like we should do this now. Make it happen.”
So, I went out and although the sky was dark and ominous and the wind was picking up, the fish didn’t know the difference and the water had cleared up some since that morning. Conditions were not perfect and still, the girls went from terrified of the ocean to giggling underwater. We had a gorgeous dive at the end of which my face hurt from smiling so much. The mother was so grateful that her girls could have a positive experience in the ocean before they left. And I pointed out that what she had said that inspired me to just get out there and do it was a good metaphor for life as well. It may not seem like the perfect time, the perfect conditions for what you want to happen but you’ve got to just do it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Life is right now. We should live fully now. The more you put the things you want off, the greater chance they have of never happening. Why wait? Just make it happen. Like Jimmy says, don’t try to live later when you’re dead tired. Live now.
Thinking about death ultimately leads me full circle to think about life. There’s a theory out there about reincarnation that talks bout how we must live every side of existence before our time on the planet is through. That we have to live as the child and as the old man, how we have to know the story of the fisherman and the fish by living them both. Rather or not you believe in reincarnation, its still possible to see the wisdom in this: To see all sides of life as not right or wrong, just as an aspect, a facet of the glittering spark of consciousness. That spark is aglow for different lengths of time for each of us. Jimmy referred to it as living on “borrowed time.” Which the dictionary tells us is a period of uncertainty during which the inevitable consequences of a current situation are postponed or avoided. The inevitable being death, or the inevitable being life? You will live but how? To what degree? There are so many different ways to die, and amongst those, there are so many different ways to live.
What would you do if you knew you has an expiration date coming up? How would you live differently? There are so many ways, to appreciate more and take less for granted, reach out to the people who have improved your journey, who have inspired you and let them know. Spend more quality time with your favorite person. Take more time to breathe in the beauty around you. Wear more comfortable clothing. Watch more sunsets. Feel the wind. Taste the sea. Get lost on purpose. Wander without an agenda just to enjoy where you are. Pet more dogs. Smile at strangers. Put your energy into things that reciprocate - watch less TV. Worry less about limits, eat more cookies. Plant more flowers. Buy yourself flowers. Don’t just listen to the music, get up and dance.
As many endings as there are, there are also beginnings. Life is full of firsts. Get out of the passenger seat and take the wheel, take charge of the direction of your life. Stop reading your story as written by fate and start writing it. Write the book. Buy the plane. Live on the sailboat for a while. Or just eat more cookies. Whatever it is, realize this won’t all be here forever. Make the most of your borrowed time.
“Now we may have a year, or we may have a lifetime,
No one can be certain what the future will allow,
We live on borrowed time
Yesterday is past, tomorrow seems a million miles away
But I promise you that I'm gonna make love last
By living every moment, every hour, every day.” -Barry Manilow
