Running out of time

Today my mentor asked me, “What has kept you going?”

Specifically, he was referring to the personal and professional development projects we’ve been consistently checking in on for the last 2 years.

Projects that, at any point, I could’ve given up on or taken a break from.

My response:

I constantly feel like I’m running out of time.

Several observations have led to this unquietable feeling.

There’s the parent I unexpectedly lost several years ago — we didn’t have nearly the amount of time we thought we’d have together.

Then there’s Tim Urban’s Life in Weeks calendar — an 89x52 chart representing each week of an 89-year human life (pictured below) that he annotated with the deaths of famous people like Marilyn Monroe, Mozart, and Steve Jobs who never made it even close to the end.

For many of them, their journeys were probably called to an end far sooner than they expected.

It makes you wonder, which week will be my last? Chances are you won’t see it coming.

We rarely get the time we think we’re supposed to get.

This perspective is the opposite of doomy. It’s an asset that you can call upon.

Whenever someone or something has kicked you down, sometimes all it takes is remembering just how precious and unpredictable time is to light a fire under you to get you back up with twice the conviction.