“There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.” — Henry David Thoreau, from Thoreau’s Journal

A long quote to start the blog today, and not really a quote at all but Thoreau’s entire entry from April 24, 1959. He wrote this for himself, of course, but like Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations we’re left with his words as guideposts for our own lives. Thoreau reminds us to up our game. Henry never had a 401(k) to consider, this is true, but consider this: He’d be dead three years after writing this journal entry at the shockingly young age of forty-four. What’s a 401(k) to someone who would never live to realize the savings? Today is our day of reckoning, Thoreau implores to himself and now us.

Lately the world is reminding me that we all have an expiration date. People come and go from our lives all the time, and phases of our lives are merely seasons we scarcely pay attention to until they’re slipping away. To live a long life is to find ourselves navigating many such seasons, and if we pay attention, learning a thing or two from each. Our greatest lesson is the one we’ve been hearing all our lives: There is no postponing life, we must do what calls to us now.

The trick is to actually do that, isn’t it? The days fly by fiercely, with no apologies from eternity on its march. We are the only ones who are audacious enough to believe that we have the agency to do something in our time. We either rise to meet our days or regret their passing. There is no other life but this, or the like of this. Indeed, we shall never see the likes of this season again in our own lifetime. Will it be remarkable or fall with all the rest?