Reflections on TIME

Reflecting on time is something that people do as they get older, I guess. Recently I was reading a book in which the main character reflects that she has less time ahead of her than behind her, and that she has realized how much time was wasted in her youth on things that in the end turned out to be unimportant. She mentions the impatience she felt with her husband and son, and the time she spent being indifferent to neighbors or co-workers, rather than spending time as a mentor or friend.
All the anger that we waste so much energy on, say in traffic, or waiting in line is a good example of wasted time; all the grudges we hold for what seems to be perfectly good reasons, in looking back on them from a distance, we oftentimes discover that they weren't good reasons at all, and they did not add anything to our happiness or sense of wellbeing. Sometimes, rather the opposite. And the character in the book remarks that we never know what a waste of time it is while we are doing it.
I have reading a book by a teacher that I have been studying with, and one of the things that she talks about is how we would like to be remembered, what we would like to be remembered for. She joked in a lecture about what we would like on our tombstone; whether we would want it to say something like "Here lies Maria, she had issues" or rather something else, like "Here lies Maria, who lived a life of love and fulfillment". I am not trying to be morbid here, but just passing on this gem: that if we think about how we would like to be remembered, it tells us something about what is really important to us, and that we can then go on ahead with our lives doing and reinforcing those very things which are important and letting go of the rest of the "stuff" that we waste so much of our precious time doing.
Because life IS precious. We each have hours and days and years to spend making ourselves who we want to be, passing on our thoughts and ideas, effecting change in the word if we dare, and then leaving it all behind. Doesn't it make sense to make those hours and days that we have the best that they can possibly be, to make them the happiest and most beautiful, to create around us a lively and interesting environment that we can share with the people we love and respect?
When we are young, we think that we have all the time in the world to make decisions, to correct mistakes, to forge ahead without thought or apology, and then the time passes and we don't always or perhaps even ever notice its passing. But pass it does, and just as the woman in the book, we have less time ahead than behind. So think of how worthwhile it would be to think now of how we want to be remembered, and then go out and do something about making that happen.
The year is about to turn. The 21st century is already 10 years old. It's a good time to think about time and to reflect on how we want to spend ours. You are writing your own story, what do you want it to say? Who are you willing to be?