Rowling kind of nailed it

As Harry Potter walks to what he believes will be his death in the final book of the Harry Potter series, he thinks long and hard about life and death.

Author JK Rowling writes:

“Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second.”

Also:

“Why had he never appreciated the miracle that he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart?”

Rowling kind of nailed it.

For me, it required a gun pressed to the side of my head and the trigger repeatedly pulled for me to understand this truth about life and alter the way that I live forever.

Two near-death experiences requiring CPR to save my life when I was younger perhaps primed the pump, too.

But Rowling, as far as I can tell, has never come so close to death, yet she so clearly understands the immense feeling of regret at the end of your life if it has not been well lived, or even if it has been lived well.

I’ve lived my life since that terrible day in a desperate attempt to avoid that feeling of regret a second time.

My new book is called Someday Is Today because most people live their lives with the mistaken belief that there will always be a tomorrow. You can make that lifelong dream come true “someday.” There’s plenty of time to change your life.

What a silly thought.

As Rowling wrote:

“To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second.”

It sometimes feels like the days are long and years even longer, but when you are standing on death’s door, the last thing you want to be thinking is how much time you wasted failing to do the things you always dreamed of doing.

Musician and pop icon’s last words before his death in 2017 were, “So much wasted time.”

Cassidy felt that same regret that I felt when I thought my own life was coming to an end. And he was David Cassidy. A musician and performer known throughout the world.

Cassidy understood the immensity of regret in his final moments.

Rowling somehow understands it, too. She gets it.

Or Harry Potter gets it, but as a novelist, I can tell you that the thoughts of my protagonists are almost always my own thoughts, too.