A Morning Reflection on Life

A guest blog written by Ivan Goh (shared with permission)

A few mornings ago, as I sat alone at breakfast overlooking the hotel pool on a bright, beautiful and almost impossibly peaceful morning here in Dubai, I found myself simply staring at the water and thinking about Life.

The sun was shining brilliantly. The sky was blue. Breakfast was being served. People around me were talking, laughing, checking their phones, making plans for the day and carrying on with the familiar routines of an ordinary morning.

And yet, somewhere beyond this peaceful little world surrounding me, there is war in the region.

Not so very far away, another human being may be experiencing the most terrifying morning of his life.

A family may be wondering whether their home will still be standing tomorrow.

Someone may be saying goodbye to the person they love without knowing whether that goodbye will be the last.

The contrast struck me deeply.

How strange this world is.

How one person’s perfectly ordinary morning can exist at exactly the same moment as another person’s unimaginable tragedy.

And it made me realize again just how fragile the thin thread of normality really is.

We wake each morning assuming there will be another.

We make plans for next week, next month, next year and sometimes years into the future as though Time has somehow entered into an agreement with us.

But Time has made no such promise.

Life is fleeting.

Perhaps we hear those words so often that we no longer truly understand them.

But they are among the greatest truths of our existence.

Everything we know is temporary.

Youth passes.

Beauty changes.

Strength diminishes.

Careers eventually end.

Homes belong to someone else one day.

Possessions are scattered.

The places where we once stood become somebody else’s memories.

And eventually, every one of us must surrender the one possession we spent our entire lives believing belonged to us:

Time.

That is why I have come to believe that Time is both life’s most precious currency and its greatest adversary.

Money lost can sometimes be earned again.

Possessions can be replaced.

Opportunities may occasionally return.

But yesterday is gone forever.

Not all the wealth in the world can purchase one minute of Time back.

And perhaps this is why I feel so strongly that Life should never be unnecessarily postponed.

There are words that should not wait until tomorrow.

There are embraces that should not be withheld.

There are promises that should not be endlessly delayed.

There are people who should never be left wondering whether they truly matter.

Because one day there will be no “later.”

One day the telephone will no longer ring or text will never appear.

One day the chair across the table will be empty.

One day we will desperately wish for one more ordinary morning with someone we loved.

And suddenly all those mundane moments we barely noticed will become priceless.

One more breakfast together.

One more walk.

One more argument followed by forgiveness.

One more laugh.

One more journey.

One more opportunity to say:

“You mattered to me. You were part of my life, and my life was richer because you were in it.”

That, increasingly, is how I want to live whatever remains of my journey.

I do not want merely to accumulate more days.

I want to make my days count.

I want to live without keeping score.

I want to give without constantly asking what I will receive in return.

I want to have compassion for those whose journeys are more difficult than mine.

I want to speak truth to power when silence would be easier.

I want to remain kind in a world that can sometimes make kindness difficult.

I want to be grateful for the privilege of another sunrise.

And above all, I want my word to mean something.

If I make a promise, I want to honor it.

If I give someone my commitment, I do not want that commitment to disappear when circumstances become inconvenient.

Because ultimately, what is a human being without integrity?

At the end of our lives, we will not be measured simply by what we possessed or the titles that once appeared after our names.

Perhaps the greater measure will be much simpler:

Did we keep our word?

Did we care enough?

Did we stand beside the people we promised not to abandon?

Did we show compassion when someone needed us?

Did we make another human being’s life a little brighter because we were part of it?

That is the legacy I increasingly care about.

I have no desire to live forever.

But I desperately want to live while I am alive.

I want to see more of this extraordinary world.

I want to sit at more tables surrounded with people I care about.

I want to laugh until my stomach hurts.

I want to watch sunsets without rushing somewhere else.

I want to say what is in my heart while I still have a voice to say it.

I want to forgive what deserves forgiving.

I want to fight for what deserves fighting for.

And I never want pride, fear, convenience or procrastination to steal years that life could have filled with memories.

Because there is a terrible sadness in imagining one awaiting for life to begin when life was happening all along.

We cannot keep telling ourselves:

Someday.

Soon.

When circumstances are better.

When everything is easier.

When the timing is perfect.

There may never be a perfect time.

There is only the time we have been given.

Today.

This morning.

This heartbeat.

This opportunity to live life to the full

This opportunity to make something right.

This opportunity to keep a promise.

This opportunity to tell someone what they mean to us.

I feel an overwhelming gratitude simply for being alive.

Not because life has always been easy.

It hasn’t.

Not because everything I have wanted has happened when I wanted it to.

It hasn’t.

But because despite everything, I am still here.

Still capable of living

Still capable of giving.

Still capable of dreaming.

Still capable of making someone’s day brighter.

Still capable of creating another memory.

And while I still have that privilege, I want to use it.

I have often thought that perhaps this is how I would like my own life to be remembered:

Like a shooting star crossing the night sky.

A shooting star does not remain forever.

Its journey across the darkness is breathtakingly brief.

But for those few extraordinary seconds, it burns brilliantly.

It catches our attention.

It makes us look upward.

It illuminates the darkness around it.

And even after it disappears beyond the horizon, the person who witnessed it remembers having seen its light.

Perhaps that is all any of us can really hope for.

We arrive.

We burn brightly for a little while.

We live

We stumble.

We learn.

We hurt.

We forgive.

We laugh.

We cry.

We touch other lives.

And then eventually we disappear beyond the horizon.

But perhaps something of us remains.

In someone’s memory.

In someone’s character.

In a kindness they learned from us and passed to another.

In a promise we kept.

In a hand we held during a difficult time.

In the life of someone who once needed to know that they mattered.

And so when my own shooting star finally disappears into that vast night sky, I hope those I leave behind will not remember me simply for what I accomplished.

I hope they will remember how deeply I

cared.

That I gave.

That when I made a commitment, I meant it.

That I tried to speak the truth even when truth was uncomfortable.

That I stood beside the people I loved when standing beside them mattered most.

That I tried to leave people better than I found them.

And perhaps somewhere, someone will look into the night sky and remember that for one brief moment in this enormous universe, our lives crossed.

And I hope they will smile.

Because ultimately, I have come to understand something very simple:

Life is not about how long our shooting star remains in the sky.

It is about how brightly we choose to burn while we are here.

So I want to live.

Fully.

Fearlessly.

Compassionately.

Honestly.

I want to love with everything within me.

I want to honor my promises.

I want to cherish the people who have chosen to walk beside me.

I want to make ordinary moments extraordinary simply by understanding how temporary they are.

And when my final day eventually arrives, I hope I can look back without wishing that I had lived more, spoken more honestly, forgiven sooner, travelled farther, laughed louder, held someone closer or spent fewer years waiting for tomorrow.

I want to be able to say:

I was here.

I lived with integrity.

I gave something of myself to others.

I made memories.

I made a difference.

And I did not waste the extraordinary privilege of being alive.

Because Life is fleeting.

And somewhere between our first breath and our last lies this magnificent, heartbreaking, beautiful opportunity called Life.

May we never be so busy preparing for tomorrow that we forget to live it today.

May we never postpone to live until Time decides for us that it is too late.

And may each of us, however briefly we are given this night sky, have the courage to become that shooting star