Life is too short! Really! There will never be enough time to do all the things I wish to do, meet all the people I wish to meet, experience all the events I wish to experience. Life is just too short!

In quick succession my dad died after successful triple-bypass heart surgery. Unable to deal with the strain of such intrusive procedures, his basic life supporting systems failed. He was 61.

A little later a college friend of over 20 years, a man in his mid-40s, a man who ran miles every day, watched his diet and cared for his body, died of heart failure.

Then a coworker died having made a mistake in judgment while driving. Following that my brother had a heart attack at age 48. And after that a friend was killed, the victim of a hit-and-run accident. I've attended more funerals and visited more hospitals in the past five years than in the entire 50-plus years prior. I really feel mortal.

While musing on my mortality and viewing life around me, I came to the concrete conclusion that life is just too short. I want more time. It's not that I'm selfish or unreasonable. I just want more time.

I want more time!

I want more time to listen to music. I want more time to listen to children laugh. I want more time to listen to great speakers and gurgling streams. I want more time to hear the sounds of silence as I look over incredible vistas of creation. I want more time to see the sun set and sip tea with the dawn. I want more time to chase rainbows and butterflies, kittens and puppies, kites and paper planes, and breezes across a field. I want more time with our little people--the owners of tomorrow. I want more time for my family.

I want more time to explore. I want to know about the world around me. I want to understand the microscopic world of minute particles and the infinite expanse of the universe. I want more time to explore humanity, its potential, its failings, its wonders. I want more time to get to know you as society and as individuals. I want more time for art and literature and people and places and sounds and feelings and touchings of mind and spirit.

I want more time to help others. I want more time to lighten the load people carry. I want more time to show others beauty when they're surrounded by ugly. I want more time.

So I went looking for time.

I was disappointed. No store carried packages of time. No salesman offered me a deal on this priceless commodity. No manufacturer had time scheduled in its production line. Time wasn't available. That is, except for the personal allotment doled out to each of us on the day of our birth. And then, not everyone is assigned the same amount.

The dilemma--I want more time and there isn't any more time.

New ground rules

I must make do with what I have been given. So in order to get as much of my wishes and dreams and desires accomplished in my allotted time, I've developed new ground rules. Today, I have no more time for worrying about things that never happen. I have no more time for fearing what might, could or may happen. I have no more time for negative attitudes that hold and suppress action and enthusiasm. I have no more time for destructive behavior. I have no more time for the caustic, cynical, reproachable, condemning, intolerant, self-motivated, me-only, win-at-all-costs negatives that exhaust time without providing value to life.

Life is too short to live looking backward. It's too short to be distracted by refusing to see beyond myself, beyond the petty and insignificant, beyond the dirt and grease and offending smells to enjoy the world around them. Time is too precious to spend on wasted, valueless activities...

Shhh...I've got to run--I think I hear a newborn crying and some birds singing and waves crashing on the Monterey coastline. I have just enough time to enjoy this unique opportunity.

This life is just too short.

Beyond making positive changes to our lives now, these musings can get us thinking about the future and what is beyond this life. The Bible is the most authoritative source on the afterlife.