Save Time for Things That Don't Matter

My great aunt used to tell me, that until she was old, she refused be anything but young. She said those words until she died at 86 years young.
I am left with memories that only a few on earth will remember.

My great aunt was wild, unpredictable and one of the most life-filled people I have ever known. Her enthusiasm for existence was infectious.. you couldn't help but smile when she was around; her jokes were raucous, her hugs genuine.
I am better for knowing her.

Fleeting. That is this life.
It is already a memory in the dark recesses of my brain - the flicker of days; like the highlights of a picture book.
I have been battling the notion of success lately.
Like an alligator from a Florida swamp, it grabs me and drags me under sometimes.. its sharp teeth ripping off chunks of my heart and tearing away my passions. Yet, I always struggle my way free! Once I've escaped the gray waters, I can see the beast clearly from the river's bank: for what it is - a demon that steals so many hungry tigers from their mothers.

It is not a coincidence that my aunt passes away while I am here in Hawaii.
It is fate, that brings us to conclusions about the shapes of our minutes.
I believe it had to be here, here in the solitude of paradise, that my great aunt's words finally sink in.
It is the photo taken a few hours before she passed, and then the vision of today's sunset passing from the sky - that perfect contrast between beauty and weakness that breathes thought into my lungs.
It is the memory of my great aunt's laughter, and then the laughter from my own mouth that makes me notice how similar she and I are; she was laughing a few days ago - I am almost 86.
I am reminded everywhere I look.
From here, on this island, I see everything beautiful and glorious and perfect... and yet I still see the helpless state of us all - buried in my aunt's fading eyes.
The end to our lives that comes regardless of success or pursuit or power - In the end, we go back to the earth..
And what did it matter?



And what did it matter?
And what did it matter?
Challenge it all..
I ask myself what matters?
I ask myself if the 9 hrs I spent working today would have been equally as profitable, had I been lying on the beach of Kailua in my hammock? Or swimming in Sacred Falls, or hiking up the Hahaione trail, or sleeping in the grass of Kapioloni park under a Palm tree?
I am having difficulty distinguishing the line between everything that I have always believed is worthwhile.. and everything that I have always assumed doesn't matter.
It is all starting to matter.

I want to remember my aunt. Remember smiles and kind words. Remember to touch.
I want to save time for things that don't matter... days in hammocks, climbing on rocks, walking.. because really, truly, they do.
They always have.
Life is completely about the simplicity of motion - just being, just enjoying, just letting go and embracing every tiny detail of the day.
Success, is being alive; one single undeserved breathe and I have lived an incredibly successful life.

It matters.
Everything matters.



(Andrew Tipton)