The Last Time

“Do you love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”
-Benjamin Franklin

In December 1973, the hauntingly beautiful “Time in a Bottle” shot to #1 on the pop charts. Jim Croce had been inspired to write the ballad by and for his infant son. The refrain, “But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them,” expresses a longing that is at once personal and universal. We can all relate, deeply.

And adding to the poignancy of the message was the fact that just three months prior to the song reaching #1, Croce died in an airplane crash. He was thirty, and his son was two.

Time is precious. But it can’t be bottled, captured, controlled, and stored up. And it cannot be reclaimed. It is always slipping away, and with it the opportunities we have left to do something meaningful with it. And there never seems to be enough time…

“Do you love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”

I think we squander time because we think we can get away with it…that there will always be more. Sort of like a twelve year-old who’s just learned how to use dad’s ATM card.

How different would our lives be, though, if we approached every situation with the simple question, “What if this is the last time?”

What if this is the last time I kiss my beloved?
What if this is the last time I kneel in prayer?
What if this is the last time I shoot baskets with my son, or belt out a Springsteen song, or dance with my little girl?
What if this is the last time I watch a sunset?

Talk about carpe diem…of suddenly, powerfully living in the moment!

At the end of life, the passage of time is not what’s regretted…it’s what we’ve not done with the time we were given that will haunt us.

“What if this is the last time?” Someday it will be…and that will be o.k. if you’ve lived well.