June 21st marked the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. In the days and weeks leading up to it, I made a conscious effort to be more aware of the ever-so-slightly increasing daylight. From June 22 onwards, we will witness a gradual decrease in daylight each day, until we reach the winter solstice, which signifies the shortest day of the year.
This cycle continues year after year.
June is also my birth month, and 2026 marks my 45th year of life. This milestone has led to a lot of introspection and reflection over the last few weeks, because as the candles on the cake increase, the number of birthdays left naturally decreases.
In Canada, the average life expectancy of a male is just over 80 years. There are exceptions to this, of course. Many men live well past 80, and many have their lives cut short due to a multitude of reasons.
For me, simple math dictates I am most likely in the second half of my life, with more years behind me than ahead of me.
My personal summer solstice has most likely come and gone.
When I meditate on the last 45 years, I can’t help but wonder where the time went. I’ve got a lot of great memories up to this point, but life seems to have just flown by.
High school seems like it was just a few months ago. Starting a career, getting married, having kids – all these big life events seem like they only happened a few weeks ago.
When I slow down to give these memories time to float around inside my head, the first thought that comes to my mind is one we have all had and embraced to be an ultimate truth:
Life is short.
Over the last few days, I’ve come to realize this is a lie.
The truth is, for most of us, life is long.
Using my own life as an example, 45 years is:
540 months.
2,348 weeks.
16,436 days.
394,464 hours.
23,667,840 minutes.
The numbers don’t lie – 45 years is a long time.
So where has the time gone?
Years ago, I read Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life. I understood it at a very superficial level, but it never resonated with me. Recently, I stumbled upon Seneca’s writings again, and the following quote made me dive deep into thought:
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
For me, coming across Seneca again so close to my birthday felt oddly timely, as though it was a sign to nudge me to take a deeper look at what he was trying to convey.
I have found myself deeply moved by Guru Nanak’s teachings in recent years, and when I feel a need for guidance, I look to see if I can find it in his work.
With Seneca’s words about life embedded in my head, I felt an urge to explore what Guru Nanak had to say about the topic.
I recently shared my thoughts about cherry blossoms, and in that article, I used some of Guru Nanak’s words to describe what I was feeling. The full passage is:
“The nights are lost to sleep, the days are lost to consumption.
Life is as precious as a diamond, but it is traded away for nothing.”
So what have I traded the last 45 years away for?
Distractions.
Smartphones, social media, mind-numbing television, and gossip— days upon days traded away for mindless consumption. I’ve been awake physically, but mentally asleep to the world, blindly feasting on the distractions thrown at me, hungry for more and completely unaware of how they were harming me.
Negativity.
Anger, worry, regret, resentment, fear, arrogance, stress, envy, guilt— these feelings, along with countless others just as harmful, have stolen a lot of time from me. Using Guru Nanak’s words, I’ve traded so much of this precious and limited life for the worthless thoughts these emotions gave birth to.
When I reflect on this, I can’t help but experience a deep uneasiness inside me, especially when I try to tally up the time I’ve wasted on things such as these which shouldn’t matter.
It’s tempting to be miserable about it. I was in a sour mood for a few days, until I realized how ironic it all was. I was doing exactly what I was stressing about – focussing on things that were worthless, and only creating further feelings of emptiness inside my head.
As they say, no mud – no lotus.
A lotus rises from murky water, and this human existence brings about the murkiest waters of all by virtue of everyday life.
In that same vein:
No selfishness – no gratitude.
No arrogance – no humility.
No resistance – no acceptance of Hukam, the divine order of the Universe.
Everything I have fretted about over the last 45 years has led me to this moment:
The awareness of the things we waste our time on is the catalyst for waking up.
Distractions and negativity are the mud.
Awareness is the lotus.
With the daylight now decreasing, we can let the mud overwhelm us and fret about the shortening days, or we can take a moment to appreciate the sunshine, the laughs, the moments the summer always brings, knowing they, just like everything else, are temporary.
We can trade away the precious time we have left on this beautiful planet for things we know are poison for our souls and dive deeper into the muck, or we can use that time to try to be good human beings, and like the lotus, reach for the sky with hope and love.
We can choose to accept that life is not short, and that we have the power to not trade our precious time for worthless and self-harming pursuits we are so inclined to entertain.
45 years are now behind me; 45 summer solstices are in the books.
I hope I have a lot more birthdays and solstices ahead of me, but accept whatever the Universe has decided to bless me with, and commit to enjoying the daylight I have left in a meaningful way.
Life is as precious as a diamond, and I would be a fool to continue trading it away for nothing.
