Kat’s Hot Talk

By Kat Barry

When I woke up on Christmas Eve, I realized I still didn’t have gifts for my nephews.

Nor had I done any holiday baking or selected the vegan main dish for our Christmas feast. I’ve obviously known for months that Christmas is Dec. 25, and, therefore, gifts must be purchased and food prepared. Why on earth did I leave this all to the last minute when I knew it was coming for so long?

There are a range of reasons, excuses really, for my lack of planning this holiday season: a hectic work schedule, holiday social engagements, my own head saying there is still plenty of time to get it all done …

My vision of a leisurely day of baking and hiking was thwarted by my procrastination. For the record, this is not like me. I am a notorious planner, list maker, goal setter. But we all have our moments, and, rather than beat myself up about it, I got up, grabbed a carrot juice and banged out my shopping. I read a quote somewhere once that said, “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?”  A little funny at first, but what if this is really how we lived?

A few weeks ago, we got an email from my uncle saying he was having a biopsy on a lump he found on his tongue. It turns out he has an aggressive, though treatable, type of cancer in his tongue and throat. Needless to say, his life was turned upside down in the blink of an eye.

This event and others in my personal life have really gotten me thinking about how fleeting life is. We go through our days thinking we have lots of time to accomplish all we want to do, that we’ll take the big trip next year, tell someone how we feel the next time we see them, start eating better and exercising tomorrow. But there may not be a tomorrow, or at least not the tomorrow we were planning on.

We have no idea what is going to happen at any moment or on any day. We have to be sure we are living life to the fullest at every moment. People often ask me how I fit in all I do.

My general approach is to try and make things happen every day. When I go to bed at night, I want to feel like I got the absolute most I could out of that day.
Don’t get me wrong, there are days that this does not happen, we all need down-time to recharge, but it’s one of the worst feelings in the world to wake up and realize it’s too late, that you should have told someone how you felt. Share your feelings, take steps every day that are going to help you attain the things you want out of life.

What are we waiting for anyway? Right now is the only moment we know for sure we have, let’s live it.