Don't Wish Your Life Away

Seven years ago, I used to work with an older woman named Penny, who was our office coordinator at the manufactured housing community where I still hang my sales shingle to this day. She was quiet and somewhat reserved. We worked together for almost two years and maintained a friendly, but somewhat aloof relationship. She reminded me of a librarian or a school teacher, someone who gave their all at work, but kept their personal life very close to their vest (or blouse).

Often, in the course of our polite conversations at midweek, I would tell her in a fit of excitement that I was tired of work, and couldn’t wait for the weekend or some other event in the not-so-distant future. Leaning in closely, as if we were dining in a noisy restaurant and not sitting in an empty office, a solemn look would overcome her bespectacled face. In a soft, measured voice, she would smile back at me and say the same thing every time.

“Don’t wish your life away.”

This went on for almost two years. At first I thought her admonishments were just a silly way of reminding me of our differences in age, but as our days passed and the seasons came and went, I began to realize that she was right. Penny was telling me a simple truth. I needed to appreciate the preciousness of time and how very quickly we grow old and die. Life is not an infinite journey. My children were growing up right before my eyes and changing every single day. The bitter truth was that everything and everyone that I loved- could be gone tomorrow.

The simplicity and wisdom of Penny’s words have reverberated in my mind nearly every single day since she left the company. The times of our lives are not the holidays, weddings or vacations that fill our scrapbooks and photo albums, it is in the here and now. If we all had a fast-forward button and could zoom past the doldrums of work and the boredom of living, what would we have left? Bits and pieces of laughter, love, and good times… a sixty-second commercial.

Wisdom can be gleaned from anyone at anytime, and thanks to Penny, I’ve stopped wishing my life away.