Don't Wait
Apr 04, 2012
Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.
Leo Buscaglia
Years ago, as a mid-20 something recent seminary graduate, Michael was serving a small rural church parish. Since the parish had many older, retired members, he spent a great deal of time visiting – around their kitchen tables, at their hospital bedsides, in their rooms at nursing and retirement facilities. They were eager to tell their life stories, grateful to have someone actually listen, and happy to impart hard-earned wisdom to a young guy just starting out.
He was already a father of two sons, born while he attended school. His new parishioners were gracious and generous, utterly willing to welcome a new family into their midst. They were supportive and sincere, ready to learn from him and anxious for him to learn from them.
One refrain, the litany that he often heard repeated by many of the older parishioners during those early years, one that has stuck with him more than 25 years later, is this:
Don’t wait until you are our age to do the things you like.
Don’t wait until you’re old.
Don’t wait until you’re retired.
Don’t wait until you think you have the right amount of money.
Don’t wait until you have all your work out of the way.
Don’t wait … to travel … to spend real time with the people you love … to live out your dreams …
Don’t wait.
He’s never gotten those words, those sentiments out of his mind. We understand why.
The good people imparting this wisdom understood it all too well.
Too often, they had waited … putting off travel and seeing the places they had always wanted to see until they thought they might have more time. But when they had the time so many of them didn’t have the mobility or ability anymore.
Too often, they had waited … because they were working so hard to feed their kids and to pay the bills. But when their kids grew up and started families of their own and moved away they realized that they really didn’t know their kids anymore and never saw them enough, that too many opportunities to spend time with them had passed, opportunities that could never be recovered again.
Too often, they had waited … saving all those years for the place out in the country they always wanted. But when they actually got that place their health was too poor to care for the place as they should or one of them passed away, leaving the other alone, and the place held no more interest or meaning anymore. They realized that they had mortgaged the present to pay for a future that never really came.
There were many dreams denied. Many dreams deferred. Many dreams unrealized.
As Michael listened to those good people he heard deep regrets that were real. And the good people they were, they didn’t want he and his family to travel that same path.
It was one of the most valuable lessons he’s ever been taught and ever learned.
But it was those words … “Don’t wait” … that have served as a reminder ever since.
Don’t wait … Two of the most valuable words that we could ever receive.
Don’t wait.
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