Is Life Really Too Short?

We've all heard the old saying "life's too short" at some point during our theoretically-all-too-abbreviated lives.

Usually it's uttered in association with feeling pressured into giving someone more of your money than you'd originally planned by upgrading to a top-floor suite or ordering the lobster instead of that grilled cheese special.

But regardless of the circumstances, the tireless credo is always supposed to resonate with the same didactic meaning - that no matter how much time in years, months, and days we will actually end up being blessed to spend here on Earth, no amount of them could ever be enough to possibly fill up with all of the experiences we might desire to have.

In principle, it seems like a quality-enough supposition, but given the sheer enormity of most people's tribulations just to reach that moment where splurging on the lobster even becomes a possibility - if they ever even get there at all, one could also easily make the argument that life is in fact, plenty long in median terms.

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Of course, some folks part ways with the human equation very early, before they've even had a chance to know what a lobster is or physically chew one up, let alone being able to drop the extra loot necessary to lavish in one for dinner. And then there are others who make 100 or more trips around the sun and lead lives filled with countless lobsters before finally finishing out their time here. So which of these extremes or something to be found in between might actually be too short, or too long for that matter, is entirely subjective.

Having made it to middle age, I'm personally feeling like I'll be ready to get out of here before too long. I have no desire to know the advancing entropy of my corporeal body and don't really have a lengthy list of things I'd still like to do or accomplish. Although within the past two years, I have welcomed someone into my life whom I'd like to spend a lot more time with. And I also know that my current feelings could easily change based on what life brings me in the years ahead. I'm fully aware that there are any number of happenings which might lead me to a vastly different conclusion that would see me wanting to remain in this world for another 51 years.

I'm sure many people feel the same way as I do, while some are entirely different. So I guess whether life is really too short or not is also something that perpetually remains to be seen.

On the back end of all this business of measuring life's linear merits, there's another thought that I also feel is worth exploring, and that's the notion of whether we've led a full enough life or not.

I was pondering this notion just the other day while walking down the halls a hotel after filling up the ice bucket. I was admiring the pedestrian high-traffic carpeting while taking the necessary paces to get back to my room and reflecting on all of the hotel halls I've had the privilege of knowing over the years. And the singularly-overwhelming thing that occurred to me was how fast it's all gone by.

When we're young - and I don't mean young in that way we BS ourselves into thinking we still are when we're in our 40s and 50s, I mean verifiably young - we're all seemingly hardwired to know nothing but invincibility. Summers away from school drag on without end with each day of our vacation feeling longer than the last, and the prospect of getting old and running short on the requisite grains of sand to know all of our dreams are all but universally impossible.

However, life does indeed catch up with us it would seem, and all of those mutterings we hear from our elders growing up about it going by way too fast do in fact come to pass at some point along the way.

But for as disconcerting as this harsh reality might feel, there is a brilliantine speck of joyful solace which can be found within it, and that's the additional fact that if life does eventually feel like it's passed by especially quick, that must mean you've been so busy living it in as many ways possible that you didn't even notice. And in the end, isn't that truly what knowing life is all about?

Have no fear and think not weary thoughts fellow traveler, for there is no such thing as a life too short or long, and no matter how long we are here and what we choose to do, our lives are bountifully full just by our being here at all.