I have been thinking of the idiom “living on borrowed time” a lot lately and had recently written it on my Blog Topics list.  So I looked it up, and the most common use of this phrase was when one was expected to die soon.  But a broader definition of “living on borrowed time” in Merriam-Webster is: an uncertain and usually uncontrolled postponement of something inevitable.  So, in that context, doesn’t it stand to reason that as people, we are living on borrowed time?

To me, it does.  If we accept that our time of death can never really be known for sure, then we indeed are all living on borrowed time.  And if a person thinks about one’s life in this way, doesn’t a sense of urgency come to mind?  Because of that, shouldn’t we take the time to consider and do all the things we want to do or accomplish while we are still here, as a living, breathing person?

As I get older, I often think of all that I still want to accomplish and enjoy.  Isn’t that why people make “bucket lists?”  I don’t particularly like that term, but it pretty much says it all.  That’s a good reason to consider the things we want people to know about us as well. By telling the important stories of our lives to our progeny, they can in turn, hand them down to the next generation.  A verbal legacy of a life, passed down to future generations, is an incredible gift to share.

My mother passed away recently and I am finding that many of the things she told me about her life are going to disappear from my memory if I don’t write them down.  I always meant to do this, but am saddened by the fact that I lost the chance to do it properly.  I should have made recordings of her telling me those stories.  I wanted to, but never followed through with it.  What a missed opportunity!  

So now I have to start to write her stories down, and my own, to pass on to the next generations.  And I had better do it now, because I am indeed, living on borrowed time.