“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” I recently came across a similar bit of wisdom, attributed to Father Alfred D’Souza, a philosopher I now profoundly admire, although I’d never heard of him until recently. I first came across his name in a novel and have discovered many other men with the same or similar names. All seem to have been born in modern times. Rather long but considerably more thought-provoking than the above quote, here is what D’Souza wrote, “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that those obstacles were my life.”

Having just celebrated a birthday that shoved me well into the last decade of a century since I made my debut, I succumbed to the inevitable bout of introspection, wondering seriously if it had all been worth it. Oh, I’ve done the list thing more than once – balancing my accomplishments against my failures – and I’m happy to report that the plus side is considerably longer than the negative side. But that has to be true for most of us or the human race would have made no progress at all since we nested in treetops and hollows in the ground.

I certainly can’t claim that it hasn’t been an enjoyable ride, at least most of the time. Even those little snags have included some treasured experiences and contributed immeasurably to the total. And, maybe some of those shining dreams that I was waiting for all that time wouldn’t have been so wonderful if realized. Maybe the disappointments put the rest of it into focus. After all, “ordinary” can look pretty darn good after struggling through “tragic.” And there’s a certain comfort in “boring” when you’ve just been “terrified.” Nobody, of course, can tell you that and make you believe it until you’ve found out for yourself.

The provoking aspect of D’Souza’s thought was the part about waiting. Waiting until the present obstacle had been subdued and the next one, and then the next one. Putting off actually living until the next little annoyance had been put to rest, the next obligation satisfied.

It had been a matter of waiting until the time was right, the circumstances agreeable if not ideal, the frame of mind open and optimistic. It has taken me a good many years to come to the conclusion that it ain’t gonna’ happen.

As children, we wait to grow up, wait for birthdays, wait until we’re big enough to cross the street alone, to ride a bike past the corner, to have an after-school job, a first date, a first taste of whatever we imagined passed us into the adult world, be it our first car, our first hangover or our first love affair. We wait for college to be over with, the first job, getting ourselves firmly established in a real career. We wait to find the perfect life partner, to produce the first offspring, to own our first house. For years we plan on really living once the mortgage is paid off, the kids are through college, the trip to Europe looms brightly – life begins at sixty! Well, first, we’d better get those teeth fixed and that gimpy knee repaired. What’s this about a CAT scan? More tests? Well, it’s nothing too serious. We’ll start living once we recover from the surgery and finish all that physical therapy. Sound familiar?

So, if this is what life really is, then I guess it’s time to get on with it. No more waiting for the next hurdle to be behind me. It’s time to point my compass at an attractive star and head out – we’ll jump the fences when they come up but we’re not going to sit huddled in dread of them and miss the journey altogether.

One truth I’ve learned in all this turmoil, waiting, struggling and discovering is that no matter how short or long a life turns out to be, it’s the only one we have, and we’d better pay attention and make the most of it while we can. Don’t risk it all by sitting around and waiting for it to get interesting.