Time… it’s that one thing we can never get back.

The finite nature of time is actually a gift. Its scarcity makes it the most valuable thing we have.

Have you ever noticed that when you have eons of time to get something done, your efficiency goes down a lot? Maybe it’s why we procrastinate or why they say if you want to get something done, ask a busy person to do it. (Please tell me I’m not the only one!)

The end of a year or season creates that reality check that we need to appreciate time.

Many of us get thoughtful this time of year. We reflect on the previous year and plan ahead for what’s to come. It’s a time of letting go of the old and introducing hope and renewal for the new. It’s an integral part of being human. We create a calendar to mark time, and with it, we create arbitrary holidays to commemorate the passing of that time.

These moments that create time scarcity help us grow and evolve.

My reflection begins every year at Thanksgiving. I have my own personal holidays that make this time so meaningful for me. Ten years ago, I made the biggest and scariest leap I’ve ever made in my life. I quit dentistry, the career I had spent my life building. My years in dentistry were, in a word, painful. Not only did the work itself create discontent for me, but the shame and judgment that I heaped on myself for being “such a failure,” didn’t help. The first three years in practice were okay because I had hope that things would get better. But once I hit my own arbitrary mark of three years in practice, the hope fled, and I became perpetually unhappy. The next seven years of my dream career were filled with anxiety, depression, and shame.

You could look at that decade as time wasted that I can never get back. Or, you can look at it as part of my journey that led me here today.

This is why every year, from Thanksgiving to the New Year, I stop and notice. I don’t lament the years living the wrong life, but instead I celebrate how much clarity those years gave me to choose how I really want to live. Without that experience, I may have never gotten here now.

After that, life was really good, but three years ago, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. Healthy and excited about my life, I received the shock of a lifetime. I endured chemotherapy, the pain of unsuccessful cold-capping, multiple surgeries, and radiation. Worse than all of the physical suffering, was the grief from losing my identity. I lost what I unknowingly identified with for my entire life: I was a healthy person. Cancer wasn’t supposed to happen to people like me. Who would I be now that I wasn’t a healthy person anymore?

Cancer was beyond hard, but I came out of it with a greater sense of gratitude and excitement than I’ve ever had in my life. I experienced a metamorphosis.

Facing my mortality reminded me of the value of time.

And a crazy thing happened. I had my very last targeted chemotherapy treatment on the Thursday before Thanksgiving in 2019.

What was with that day? It was like my own special holiday of rebirth, my own special Thanksgiving. It was the last day I ever practiced dentistry and let go of my career identity; and 8 years later, it was the rebirth of the new image of a healthy me.

It’s my REBIRTHDAY!

Emerging from a life defined by cancer for almost two years, that time in relation to the rest of the world was a blur. The world went on around me. I lost track of time, that one thing we can never get back. We were all a year older, but in my obsessive commitment to getting healthy, I was a year behind and missed it all.

You could look at it as time wasted that I can never get back. Or, you can look at it as part of my journey that led me here today.

I don’t lament the years of illness and suffering, but instead I celebrate knowing my authentic self in a way that I never did before.

Just as I was transitioning back into normal life again, the pandemic happened, and the world shut down. It created havoc in everyone’s lives. For me, it provided a soft landing, as I shifted back into a real world without cancer. I had already spent the last 16 months quarantining. I was very well-practiced at this point. Except this time, I felt good physically, emotionally, and spiritually; food tasted great; and I felt free.

As this pandemic continues, one thing we can agree on is that we are all sick of it. Me too. It’s added an extra two years of watching time pass by without us.

We’ve all experienced time differently these past few years. My childhood friend’s son started college when the world felt so different. Now, he is getting ready to graduate. Wait a minute! How did that happen? It’s as if time and life has happened all around us, and we’re on the sidelines watching.

We could look at these two years as time wasted that we can never get back. Or, we can look at it as part of our journey that led us here today.

What if these last two years are your eye-opener? Instead of lamenting this time that feels wasted missing out on life, what if we could cherish it for getting us here today?

If you’ve invested a lot in a job, a career, or a relationship that is tearing you up inside, maybe you can look at your investment as part of your journey that will lead you to what’s next. Maybe that very experience can give you the clarity or the gratitude or the attitude that you need to live your life on your terms.

Instead of holding onto it with all your might, so you don’t waste all you’ve invested; what if you looked at that season of your life as the exact experience leading you to what’s next?

This is a great time to take stock of your life and ask, “How do I want to spend the rest of my limited time on this planet?” Instead of making resolutions and goals that you don’t mean, try asking yourself this one question and take stock.

What do you REALLY want NOW, and how are you aligning your life with that?

Get real with yourself. You are not the same person you were 1, 5, 10 years ago. It’s okay to evolve.

Sure, the time you’ve already invested in your life… you’ll never get it back. But what if everything that happened to you so far was the perfect thing you needed to get you here today? What if your career, your marriage, your relationships were not the destination but instead another stop along the way? What if it was the exact thing you needed to help yourself learn how you want to spend the rest of your life on this planet?

If that were the case, how would you choose to spend the next leg of your journey?