Photo: Me a few weeks ago flying through the Central Coast 1 km Zip Line. An example of making the most of every opportunity.
As I write this post on the last day of 2015 I look back at my time on this planet and wonder how did it pass so quickly?
I was thinking last night about a time when I was just sixteen years old. I was sitting on bus in Dunedin, New Zealand on my way home from school. I distinctly remember looking at the woman in front of me, who I thought was about twenty. And as clear as it is with me typing this now, I can still go back to that exact moment, feel myself sitting on the bus and this thought; “wow, one day I will be twenty”. As a sixteen-year-old I was so absorbed in my teenage life, that the thought of being twenty was just unbelievable. I am not sure why I have hung on to that memory all these years (I’m 54 now).
Then after that thought last night, I was thinking of when my dad told me a story about me when I was only just walking. Apparently, he had taken me for a walk and I was chasing a leaf. He said, an elderly lady came up to him and said “everything is an adventure for them at that age.” I guess chasing a leaf was an adventure for a little baby who, for the first time in her life, saw a leaf blowing gently in the breeze.
Another ‘time’ moment for me is when I was a young mum, and I had my first child Emma. We were living in the Blue Mountains of NSW at the time, and Emma was about two. As we walked up the street, an elderly lady came to me and said “don’t ever forget this moment, they grow up so fast.” As you can see, I have never forgotten that moment and I still see the little blonde toddler in her dress that I had made her, walking up the street, so full of life and happiness.
Time is precious. Life is precious. We are here for a blink of an eye and this is what I remind myself when times are tough or I am not feeling as happy as I would like. Make the most of it, it goes so fast and, I for one, want to know that I had contributed to this planet, no matter how small that contribution might be.