“The bad news is that time flies, the good news is you’re the pilot.” — Michael Altshuler
Back in college, I enrolled in an internship class where my classmates and I were assigned to develop a much-needed marketing campaign for the New York State Department of Health. It was one of those projects that felt bigger than a grade because it dealt with real lives and real impact.
For an entire semester, we worked alongside a special task force within the department whose main mission was to increase awareness around the importance of organ and tissue donation. Their research uncovered a troubling insight: out of all age demographics, our generation, the millennials, had the lowest willingness to register as organ and tissue donors in the event of death.
This finding presented a major crisis. The demand for organ and tissue donations was rising rapidly, and countless seriously ill patients were depending on these lifesaving gifts just to have a fighting chance at overcoming debilitating illnesses — to have a second chance at life. Every unregistered potential donor meant another person left waiting… and sometimes, waiting too long.
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Because the majority of the team members at the time were from the “older” generation, they often found themselves scratching their heads, trying to determine how to effectively promote organ and tissue donation to young college students. Their question ultimately became: How do you speak to an audience whose worldview feels completely different from your own?
Long story short, after giving it much thought, they eventually came to a simple and sensible conclusion: “Who better to promote to college students than college students themselves?”
Naturally, you’d think that communicating with our own peers, a group we understood, related to, and lived among every day, would make the campaign easier. However, it didn’t take long for us to realize that trying to convince college students to become organ and tissue donors was anything but easy.
We discovered quickly that the primary reason millennials had such a low sign-up rate was because many believed their youth made them invincible. They felt they still had their entire lives ahead of them — decades to dream, achieve, explore, and experience… In their minds, death was a distant, almost abstract concept.
Put simply, thinking about death or anything remotely connected to it, like organ and tissue donation, was the furthest thing from any college student’s mind.
But this mindset, I realized, isn’t exclusive to millennials…
Regardless of age, most of us go through life rarely stopping to acknowledge the truth that none of us knows how much time we have left to enjoy this precious gift we call life.
And here’s a sobering reality about time: once it’s gone, we can never get it back. We can’t buy it, rewind it, pause it, or negotiate for more — not even the wealthiest or most powerful among us hold that privilege.
As bleak as it may sound, our lifespan is a mystery, and at any given moment, our time may quietly, suddenly run out.
We all aspire to succeed, to experience joy, to build something meaningful. Yet the very idea that we have “so much time” often tricks us into taking time for granted. It lulls us into procrastination, hesitation, and complacency. It allows us to believe that action can always wait for “later,” even though later is never guaranteed.
Time is our universal, yet fleeting, currency. And the sooner we stop taking it for granted, the sooner we begin to understand its true value. When we genuinely grasp how precious time is, we awaken to just how much power we have to stop wasting it.
And in case you need that extra ‘push’, here’s one of the most profound reminders on life, time, and mortality from the brilliant Mr. Steve Jobs:
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure; these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new…”
In short, remember that our time is limited, so choose to spend it wisely!
PS: As you reflect on the value of time and the importance of living each day with intention, remember that how you begin your morning often shapes everything that follows. A grounded, empowered start can shift your mindset, elevate your energy, and help you make the most of every moment you’re given.
If you’re ready to start each day feeling focused, inspired, and in alignment with the life you want to create, I invite you to take a few minutes for yourself and hit play on our 15 Minute Morning Motivation Guided Meditation.
Let it be your gentle reminder that every sunrise is a new chance — a fresh opportunity to choose purpose over autopilot and presence over procrastination. Allow this practice to help you step into your day with clarity, gratitude, and intention.
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Ready to step into your best life? I’d love to support you! Let’s explore how you can make the most of your time, align your actions with your goals, and create the life you truly want. Book a FREE discovery call with me to get started.
