If I were you, I won’t wait too long!!

“We are faced with the fierce urgency of now,” are Martin Luther King Junior words, at the March on Washington in 1963, where he reminded a divided nation that they needed one another, and that they were stronger when they marched forward together.

I don’t know about you, but these words stir something deep within me. Perhaps because this short sentence has three compelling words; “fierce,” “urgency” and “now,” that agitates us to act now, move now, and do it now!

Now, I know what you are thinking, the message of “do it now” has been over-done, over-said, over-emphasised and you too are now completely “over” it . But, if you stay with me, you might discover a new enlightening perspective.

For the vast majority of us, we might not live alone, we may live with a spouse, a partner, family members, a room mate or two or too many, and we commonly describe our living arrangement as, “we live together, or share a home together,” As true as this statement might be, there is a certain casualness we attach to it. A certain taking for granted that happens as each day morphs into the next, and we exist in mundane routines day after day, month after month and year after year. We await birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas’ to celebrate each other, only for that cycle to replay year after year.

In this perpetual cycle of living together, we become delusional by believing that we have a lifetime ahead of us. Tomorrow is not a given for any of us, and the moment we find ourselves in could be our last.

The perspective I recently learnt which, I hope will challenge you as much as it did me, is that, “we are not living together - we are in fact, dying together.” (pause, take a deep breath)... Yes, I get it,! It’s a bit stoic, but sobering nonetheless! It isn’t the easiest words to hear, but it is a perspective that echoes the “fierce urgency of now.”

Richard Alpert captured the same when he said, “we are all walking each other home.”

Far too often, for far too many of us, we take for granted the impermanence of life, and hold onto to petty inconsequential frivolities that get in the way of us enjoying our life-walk with others. We hold grudges, write people off, grow resentment, and build walls closing ourselves off, and sadly we overlook what is truly important.

Being stirred the fierce urgency now, and gaining the perspective that I am but just walking others home, stirred me to reflect on my relationships, and I made a few important decisions to guide me....

• I will leave people better than I found them! My interaction with everyone should be life giving!

• I will be fully present!
  Wherever I find myself, I should be fully there!

• Be Kind!
  If I can be anything, I will choose to be kind

• I will say I love you!
  For those who deserve to hear it – I can never say it enough to them.

  Maybe, like me, reading this perspective makes you feel urgent about the time you have with the ones you love. Maybe it compels you to make a list of your own or borrow mine. Either way, “If I were you, I won’t wait too long.”

  This article was inspired by story told by Bishop TD Jakes, and written in memory of Naveen Moloo.