On Saturday night, I had dinner with Rachel Clause…oops I mean Braten!  She reminded me that I had to change her last name in my phone now that she’s been married for over three months!  It was somewhat surreal.  She had been “Rachel Clause Phi” (as in Alpha Phi) in my phone contacts for forever, and then suddenly she became “Rachel Braten Phi.”  I’ll get used to it soon, I’m sure.  It was the first friend I had to do that for, so it was just like a “wow, we’re growing up” moment.

(I also found heaven on Saturday night: A Chili’s RIGHT next to Charleston’s, my original restaurant love of my life. We ate at Charleston’s!  I still got potato soup of course.)

After dinner, walking to our cars, Rachel and I brought up how we need to get together more, get out more, just do more.  She put our concersation into four perfect words, that I can’t stop thinking about: “Life passes you by.”

It is so easy to not do something today– say, to not call my friend and set up dinner– and instead plan to do it tomorrow.  And then tomorrow I am dead after my workout & want to read, not chat on the phone, so I put it off til two days from now.  And two days from now, I may forget, so then a week from now I will remember, but I can’t do it that day because I’m at happy hour.  But then the next day, maybe I just won’t feel like it.  I maybe will have had a rough day at work and just want to do nothing.  Then the next, next day, two weeks will have passed and I’ve will have completely forgot.  Until two months from that very first passive day, when I realize I still have not seen that friend.  Life will have passed me by.

I feel like that is why I am so intent on my resolutions this year.  I spent college selfishly focused on myself, my friends, my wants.  I spent last year so wrapped up in my job, that nothing else seemed to get done. 

Every single person in this world has the same 24 hours.  We all come from different walks of life with different paths we choose to follow, but the one single, equalizing factor that we all share is those 24 hours.  How can some people accomplish so much?  And others so little?  We all start with the same 24 hours.

I don’t want life to keep passing me by.  I want to make the best of my 24 hours every day and be productive.  Whether that means getting out to help others through volunteering or selfishly just curling up with my book, I don’t want to look back and think “Huh? What on earth did I do last week?”  Instead, I want to look back each day and feel completely, utterly fulfilled by everything I’ve squeezed into my 24 hours.

And I want the same for each and every one of you.  Don’t let life pass you by. 🙂