Let's spend some time together, shall we?
What if I told you that, in a box in front of you, you have all the money you're EVER going to have?
You can look in the box. You can hold the box, feeling its weight. And from this, you can guess how much you have. But, you can't count it. You can never know for SURE how much you have.
What's more, you can't take anything out of the box, unless you are spending it. And you can't put anything back in, even if you just took it out.
Finally, you can only spend your own money, from your own box. You can't borrow anyone else's, and nobody else can give you more.
What you have NOW is the most you're ever going to have.
You'd eventually be pretty aware of everything you spent, wouldn't you?
Oh sure, while you can tell the box is full, you might spend on things you don't need. Maybe even spend on things you don't even want. (My box is super full, right?)
But, as you notice the box getting lighter, and that you have to reach deeper to pull out what you spend, you might take a little more care that what you spend on is important.
And, as that box empties, you begin to hear the last of what you have sliding around the bottom. It's getting hard for you to even reach what you need from the bottom. And when you can reach it, it's increasingly hard to even get your fingers to pick it up.
You'd be sure to spend THIS money wisely. Maybe on things that you dreamed about; maybe, on things you know have to last you forever.
And then, what if I told you that there is a thief that sometimes picks a box and steals some of the money? And, sometimes, the thief steals it all.
How would you spend your money then?
This, I think, is how we need to look at the moments we have in our lives.
Before each of us is all the time we're ever going to have. We've got a good idea how much we SHOULD have, but we're never sure. It might be more and it might be less. And, sometimes, all we have is taken, for no reason at all.
So, when I say to you, "I'm glad I got to spend this time with you," I don't say it lightly. It's precious time that we've truly SPENT, and can never recover.
Today I found out a friend passed suddenly. She and I were not close, but we were friends. Just a week ago, I had the pleasure of spending the weekend with her at a yearly gathering.
She and her sister, I, and a very few other friends took six hours on a train, both ways, to attend. On the ride down, I got to sit with her, and painted her nails for the event. It was about a half hour of very close contact, and conversation. It may very well have been the longest we'd ever spent talking one on one. It left us both with a smile, her with a lovely manicure and me with a memory of her that will last a lifetime.
I'm sorry to say I didn't give it much thought then. But with the stark reality revealed in hindsight, I am deeply grateful that she chose to spend that time with me.
