What Will You Do With the Time That’s Left? Part 2 In a Series

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I sometimes wake up thinking of this phrase, “What Will You Do With the Time That’s Left?”  A while back I had a dream.  I had a brain tumor.  The tumor was the worst possible kind, in the worst possible location.  I was given 24-48 hours to live.  I am hurriedly trying to tell my kids and Robert.  My friends come to visit, even our closest friends from Kansas are there, all while a tornado is headed straight for our house.

While this was just a bad dream, the dream was real for the mother of one my sons-in-law.   His mother woke up one day with some chest pain.  Her husband decided they needed to seek medical attention.  It wasn’t her heart.  It was a broken collar bone.  It broke because she had a tumor which was Stage 4 Cancer.

A little more than two years later she was gone.  The phrase had tangible meaning for her.  Her death at 59 brought a renewed reality to me of the fact I do not know the days that are left for me.  It also challenged me to be more intentional in several areas of my life so that while I am here, I am the healthiest I can be and the most engaged I can be.

Last week I mentioned that Robert and I had recently written our Life Plans and eulogies after reading the book “Living Forward” by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy.  The main part of the Life Plan involves identifying your Life Accounts.

Most people have somewhere around nine of these accounts.  For instance, mine are:  Health/Self Care, Career, Hobbies,  Self Development, Parental, Spiritual, Finance, Marital, Social/Relationships.  In each of these areas I have identified my purpose and envisioned my future and then come up with specific steps/goals to achieve my vision.

Why would I want to have such a detailed plan at this stage of life?   I am less than two years from an empty nest when busy school schedules are out the window.  Well, that is precisely the reason.  Time is flying by and if I want to keep living like I want to be remembered,  I need to stay focused.  The world offers so many distractions and many of them are good, but I cannot experience all the good things. I want to experience and accomplish the best things.

So I am on a journey.  A journey that has me re-reading my plan, tweaking it as needed as I discover what is really important to me.  It is a flexible plan.  Life changes and as we age we often get amazing clarity.  As my own vision has maybe decreased my life vision is becoming 20/20.

As I close this three-part series out I want to conclude with a link to a Mark Shultz song, “Time That is Left?“

So the question remains, what will you do with the time that is left?
Comment and let us know your life plans.