How many breaths are there between the first life one provides and then our last expiration? How many minutes are there between the two? I remember my mother telling me when I was young that it saddened her when she read about someone young who had passed away. But I wondered even back then, what if that person had a wonderful and fulfilling life … even if it was shorter than we think is “normal”? Why should that make you sad? I have met so many people who have lived a very long life but did not appreciate it and were insensitive and rude. Is it better to live 30 years and always be happy and in awe of the wonder of life or to live 87 years and be bitter and resentful each of those days?
So it seems to me that it is not the total number of minutes that make up your life … but what you do with those minutes.
I think about all the minutes I have used in my life to date and contemplate if I feel like they were put to good use. I realize that there are periods of time in my life where time was foolishly wasted. That I put a greater value on someone else’s time and personal worth, much more than I gave mine.
Somehow … my upbringing conditioned me to place someone else’s needs above my own. That it would help me to be a better person … or at least a more humble person. What I experienced was that this only caused other people to “use” me and then abruptly dismiss me when they had exhausted all they could use.
There are moments in my life that I wish I had never ended and I try desperately to hold on to these … and moments that I wish I hadn’t let exist. I want to be able to go back in time and reach out to these people and say, “You wasted my precious minutes and I would like to get them back so I can reuse them in happy memories.”
My passion for my life and my work of art expands outward and I try to make different (better) decisions than I have made in the past. This has become an expression of my being and often a way of explaining and sometimes reflecting on my past. Holding on to something from the past in the hope that it will never escape. But I know with every ounce of my being that time is fleeting.
I inhale … exhale … and another moment passes.
I go to sleep at night and lie in bed wondering what I could have done differently today. It’s not because I feel the need to guess at the decisions I made … just to help me make better decisions for tomorrow. I only have a few minutes … I don’t want to waste them.
1 minute = 12 breaths
60 minutes = 720 breaths
24 hours = 17,280 breaths
1 week = 120,960 breaths
1 month = 3,628,800 breaths
1 year = 43,545,000 breaths
43 years = 1,872,460,800 breaths
and counting ….