Image courtesy of Shout Me Loud.

I get really anxious about the amount of time I have. I’m not talking about hours in a day or being too busy. I’m talking about something much scarier, much deeper, than worrying about not getting my homework done.

If I’m lucky, I’ve got about 80 years left in my life. The Trooiens are known for living well into their 90s, even 100s, so it’s a pretty safe bet that I’ll follow suit. It sounds like so much time, right?

Most college students are in the same boat. We have the rest of our lives ahead of us. There is no reason for us not to feel practically immortal. Yet, many of my friends express the same worry about not having enough time.

We all want to do big things with our lives. Those things vary from person to person, but we all have goals and dreams. But in reality, our futures are uncertain. Sure, it’s likely I’ll live until I’m at least 90, but what if I don’t? Or worse, what if I live until I’m 100 and don’t accomplish anything?

These thoughts have been whirling around in my mind for the past few months. I’ve talked with peers and people I’ve looked up to about them and have been assured that this is completely normal. We all have to confront our mortality sometime.

I don’t know if it was fate or serendipity, but while sitting in the doctors office on Monday, I overheard a conversation between two women who were in their early 60s. They talked about how, when they were young, they had this need to get everything done. They worried about running out of time in their lives. They laughed about this worry and went on to discuss how laid back they were now. Time, they said, moved faster now that they were older, but it didn’t make time more valuable. One woman even said she was bored! She had done everything she’d set out to do and now she wanted to do more than just relax in her golden years.

As much as I felt bad for eavesdropping, I really couldn’t believe the coincidence. These women were saying the exact things I needed to hear to calm my mind.

I don’t think this worry about running out of time really revolves around getting everything done in life. I think it’s the first step towards confronting our mortality. By now, most of us have seen death. Whether we’ve known someone who’s passed away, witnessed a tragedy or been near death ourselves, we are realizing that life is not only fragile, but has an expiration date. The fear isn’t about the time, but about the limit.

The women I overheard tackled that, too. They discussed living in the moment, and understanding that’s the only thing that mattered. Moments which have passed can’t be changed and the moments ahead couldn’t be fathomed. The only moment that mattered is here and now. It’s the only moment you can change.

I’m very much a planner who has to have every move figured out in advance, so normally I’d be against this thinking. For me, not thinking about the future is being irresponsible. But as I turned this conversation over in my mind, I realized that these women weren’t saying that the future should be ignored, but that the present should be valued.

This can be really hard sometimes. Every now and then, the present sucks. But it’s what we have, and its the only thing we have for certain.

I realized the reason I was kept up at nights worrying about the time I had left, wasn’t because I was planning enough. It was because I wasn’t embracing the present. I am here, now. That in itself is amazing.

We all have worries about not meeting our life goals, but we all seem to forget how amazing life itself is. That’s what those women were getting at; life is amazing because it exists. Life isn’t a tally of the goals you complete and miss, but a series of moments that can change each of us forever.