An uncomfortable and overwhelming feeling that I know very well. It’s the same feeling that occurs on Sunday nights when another week arrives at the office. The same feeling that occurs when the long-awaited annual two-week vacation is almost over. I remember exactly the same feeling a few years ago when I was traveling: I was sitting in a small cafe in Bali when I realized that I had passed the midpoint of my trip. Then it hit me hard. The party would end soon. This feeling has been with me in one form or another for most of my adult life. Now, as I sit in my favorite place under this old tree, I can feel it again. The days are getting shorter and colder. Soon the trees will be bare. I can’t put my finger on it, but it seems like the sand of time is running out. There is an empty feeling in my chest.
For years, I did my best to avoid this feeling. I was busy with some mundane task. I worked out, worked, read, met my friends, texted someone … anyone, opened a bottle of wine, looked at another set of boxes, had a pint, even meditated or practiced yoga. Anything to anesthetize me and escape this feeling. Doesn’t matter what I did, the feeling never went away from me. It is always there. I don’t think I’m alone. I think most of us spend our lives running away from him in one way or another.
As I was sit, I can feel the gentle breeze on my skin. I can hear the leaves moving gently. The blue sky just above me invites a broader perspective. It’s not just about me. I am just an insignificant stain on the big picture. I am a small part of a much larger whole; The tree I’m sitting under has been here for a long time and will probably continue to be long after I’m gone. I feel a softening and a release of tension. I know this place. I feel safe here. I don’t have to run anymore. I don’t have an escape plan or to avoid this feeling. I can sit here in silence and live my experience exactly as it is.
What’s wrong?
What is this feeling?
What’s there at the root of it?
Fear.
A subtle and biting fear that is always in the background. We can spend our whole lives to avoiding it. We rarely recognize it.
The sands of time are running out. Summer always ends. In a few months, the leaves above that are now green will fall to the ground, brown and wilted. Even this big banana I’m sitting under will soon die one day.
Go deeper.
What else is here?
I sit quiet for a while …
A fear that when I die I will not have lived my own life. It may not have served my purpose.
When the banana I’m sitting under finally dies, it will do so having served its purpose. It wasn’t supposed to be an oak or beech or ash. It was supposed to turn into a banana and will die having done so.
We always think we have more “time”.
It’s time to change. It is time to be true to ourselves, It’s time to be brave. It is time to do what we have always wanted to do.
Deep down we might know that we are on the wrong path. There has to be more to life than this nature? We tell ourselves that we still have a time.
We wait.
The time goes by. The seasons change. Spring turns into summer, summer turns into fall, and finally fall turns into winter.
You have only one life. When winter comes, when you are at the end & will you die having been true to yourself? Have you discovered what your gift is and have you used it to the fullest?
Don’t wait too long.
