I have lost all my marbles.

I was out golfing with my son a few days ago and I played well above my average playing ability hitting some shots that made me look forward to the next one. I had a fairly high number of good putting shots also.  All in all a good round of golf.

As I walked up the fairway chatting with my son I told him how much I was enjoying my time with him. I went on to tell him that the more I watch the news the more I realise how fortunate I am. When he asked me what I meant I told him that I was getting very accustomed to hearing about people my age who had died. I have almost reached the point where I am afraid to read the newspapers because I might see my name in the obituary column. 

My son, who is a pretty down to earth person, looked at me and said, "You are right, but you just might manage another twenty years."

Some years ago I made a little thing on the computer a marble calculator. Let me explain.

I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years. 

I multiplied 75
 with 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.

 

I was 60 years old and by that time I had lived through over three thousand two hundred Saturdays. 

I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about 780 of them left to enjoy. 

So I entered into my marble calculator 780 and set it up to delete one every Saturday with a click on the Saturday button.  

Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and imagined I was throwing it aside. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight. 

"Now let me remind you that not very long ago I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been blessed me with a little extra time to be with my family and friends and I had better start to make the most of them. That the book I had been working on for ages had to get finished. There are some paintings I still wish to paint. The follow-up book has to happen.

I tell you about this today because I have just been in and reset the marble calculator to add a marble every Saturday and I can watch it filling with those blessed days. I had a thought, "It is nice to put back some of the marble to replace the ones I have been losing anyway".

Have a marvellous day and look after those marbles.