LATER IS A FRAGILE PROMISE THAT MAY NEVER ARRIVE.
I lost two very precious friends in 2025.
Grieving the sudden death of one and the gradual end-of-life process of the other shattered my heart and awakened my soul. From that pain, I have chosen to live fully, intentionally and in the moment.
Though the pain lingers like an uninvited shadow, it has prompted profound questions about life’s fragility and the urgency of purpose. From my grief, a quiet resolve has emerged and as a counselling psychologist and therapist, I have chosen to weave science, meaning and holistic wellness into programmes that will infuse meaning into each moment of my life and the lives of others.
In my grief journey, I found that the writing of Seneca , a Roman philosopher resonated. About 2,000years ago, he wrote “…it is not that life is short, we make it short.”
Seneca believed that time is not taken from us but that we give it away. His argument was not about dying, it was about the misuse of the time alive. As I look at my life’s journey, I cannot help but agree with him.
Like most people, I have surrendered many of my hours to distractions, irrelevant obligations, and other people’s priorities. Many of us have filled our calendars, managed our tasks, chased productivity, and stayed endlessly busy without realizing that busy is not a synonym for meaningful.
Most of us have become very good at doing so many things while postponing the core things we are here to do. Our attention is scattered across meetings, notifications, expectations, and noise.
On that altar of ‘busyness’ we sacrifice our core calling and our unique gifts.
We lose sight of the work, the love, the creativity, the insight and the instruction that only we can bring. We fail to realize that every gift we carry was given with intention. Our abilities are not accidental. Our experiences (both joyful and painful) carry meaning meant to be passed on. Our voice matters not because it is perfect, but because it is ours and it exists only for a limited time.
We lose our time to ‘later’. We wait for later… when conditions are perfect, when fear subsides, when permission is granted… but later is a fragile promise.
While we wait, life speeds by and we lose our time gradually. The gifts remain unused, the talents untapped. Unfortunately, unused gifts and untapped talents do not carry forward. You cannot take unspoken words, unfinished purpose, or withheld love beyond now and later may never arrive.
Chiadi Ndu, PhD
