You probably heard it often. People tell you, “Life’s short. Make the most out of it.” or something like that.

I never deny that life is really short, as people seem to be saying but I just never GET it. I don’t have that feeling where I go, “Oh shit, I’ve got only 10 mins left to study for my calculus test or to finish a ten pages paper in less than a half hour.” That kind of urgency. So, I don’t get that when people say life’s short.

Till now.

I think I’m finally realizing that life is getting SHORT. What’s more, it actually makes sense to me. As we’re growing up or getting older, we find more things we like and the list grows. There’s a lot of stuffs on the list you’d like or want to be good at. I like to do many different things and I admit I do have a lot of competitive instincts in me and I carry with this mindset—to kick your ass. Whenever it’s on a pool table, darts, basketball, foosball, etc, I will do my best to kick your ass, to beat you. I’ve had many people telling me that it’s just a game, play it for fun. I do try to think that way sometimes but then I lose the excitment in playing a game and effectively become bored. It’s what you make of it. Even if I lose, I will challenge you again and my “luck” is only going to get better.

Anyway, so you have many things you want to do and you’d like to become good at them. That’s when I think becomes short. Because if you want to become good, you have to invest a significant amount of time toward them and I have to accept the fact that you can’t simply become good at everything. I do want to become good or at least skillful at photoshop, programming, fish spearing, fishing, snowboarding, golf, writing, calculus, tuning cars, skateboarding, and the list just goes on. I want to become good at all of them but I know I can’t. I’d have to pick one or a few. And practice them everyday to finally become good.

The bottom line is that the longer your list grows, the shorter your life is going to be. That has to suck. :-(