To a great degree we have to gauge our lives by time, particularly in a work environment where we’re often held to set hours, and everything we plan needs to revolve around that schedule. We talk about ‘on time’, ‘in time’, ‘don’t have time’, ‘need more time’, ‘wasting time’, ‘free time’, ‘time well spent’, and ‘out of time’.
Many years ago a thirty-eight year old man told me that when he was sixteen, he and his friends went to the town carnival. They each paid $1.00 for a tarot card from ‘Zoltan’ the electronic tarot card reader. Everyone else’s cards were positive, yet this man’s card had a warning that ‘he would die at the age of thirty-nine’. Initially shaken by it, he turned his card over several times, before laughing about it with his friends, and discarding it.
As the years went by though, that message niggled at him. He would even joke about it occasionally when making decisions. His family and friends would hear him chuckle and say, “well, if I’m only here until thirty-nine, I guess I’d better cram this in while I can.” Even though he had logically dismissed it, he found himself living with the idea that if his time was of the essence, he should get a lifetime of living into that set number of years – just in case.
As thirty-nine was fast approaching, and as much as he kept dismissing it, he became increasingly apprehensive about those words he had read years before, and what if…?
I assured him he still had many healthy and happy years here, and no, he was not going to die at thirty-nine. He told me several years later (at age forty-two), that he almost held his breath through his thirty-ninth year, and actually breathed a sigh of relief when he turned forty. He also laughingly confessed, that he had to set a whole new list of goals and dreams for the upcoming years, because consciously and subconsciously he had already achieved his life-long ambitions in half the time. Amazing what we can accomplish when we want to!
I was also fortunate to work with a sixty-two year old woman, who professed that she longed to start a new career in a direction she had always been fascinated with. However, she felt that she was too old, what person in their right mind would start ramping something up, when at her age, you’re supposed to be winding down.
I told her the story of Harland David Saunders, who began Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952 at the age of sixty-five. I relayed to her about an acquaintance who walked on stage and received her sixth university degree at the age of 81, a client who took up salsa dancing when she was 89, and even my husband who just published his first book at the age of seventy-one. I also pointed out, that should she live well into her eighty’s or ninety’s, she still had at least twenty good solid years to devote to her new path before all was said and done. I heard from her many months later that she had indeed ventured into her new career, and was having the time of her life with it. She was so inspired by it, she said she felt twenty-years younger!
When I reached the age of thirty-nine, I jokingly said that I was going to start counting backward. My philosophy was, that at some point as my daughter was growing up, we would be sisters, then twins, and when she was well into her adulthood, I could slide into my totally irresponsible second childhood.
The year that my daughter and I ‘became twins’, she lovingly gave me a birthday card that said ‘Happy Birthday Twin’, and for my ‘eighteenth’ birthday, my husband and daughter gave me a birthday cake that said ‘Happy Eighteenth Birthday’. I am not in denial of my actual age, and don’t think I can physically do that of an eighteen year old, but my philosophy will hopefully help keep me younger at heart, mind, body, and health.
For the fun of it, choose an age you want to stop counting upward from (I chose 39), then subtract the difference between that age and your present age to determine your reversal age, or just choose your next birthday and deduct a year instead of adding it; then embrace it. You may find you actually have more spring in your step, and a slightly more youthful outlook on life!
Which brings me to the flip side – time isn’t limited to our chronological journey, and what we accomplish in the long run. What of those who disregard age as a limitation, such as 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, who went from concern about climate change at the tender age of eight, to raising awareness with the Swedish parliament, to recently challenging the world leaders on the global stage. She tackled her goal regardless of her youth, and yet it has been her age that has garnered her much of the attention she has received about it.
Terry Fox began his world renowned run when he was only 18. He raised awareness, and his personal mission and legacy still lives on, larger than life today. He had a goal and set out to achieve it.
Our goals don’t have to be monumental. Large or small, they just have to be ours, slotted into our timeline, if and when we’re ready, regardless of our age. Time is what we all have to fill with what we want, dream, and desire. Time is a precious commodity to be enjoyed to the fullest. Don’t put self-imposed boundaries on that time you have. Use it to the max, make it what you want it to be, and cram as much (or as little) into as you wish – because it is ‘your time’.
Time isn’t of the essence – time is the essence, treat it as one of your most cherished commodities.
Warmly,
Deborah Johnson
Clairvoyant, Medium, Author, Speaker
‘Connecting and understanding spirit, both living and passed’
Deborah Johnson Medium 