I realize it’s a bad time of year to tell people to pay attention to that churning feeling of urgency within. It’s the holiday season, and we are all bombarded with overwhelming to-do lists and parties and cards to mail. We are stressing about the holiday menu and whether the outfit we plan to wear is still going to fit and whether we will have to go to the post office in that awful, awful line once again. I realize it could feel like the least soul-ninja-style thing to do to tell you to take your urgency seriously. You’re so serious about it you are likely counting the days until you can sit around in your PJs and just have it all behind you.

Stick with me for a minute.

Not all forms of urgency are created equal. The holiday frenzy, for example, is an amalgamation of outside influences demanding that we create a picture-perfect holiday experience. (Or, we do it to show people we’re on top of things because there’s nothing Americans like to show off more than how busy we are.) That urgency is shallow, external, and unnecessary.

The urgency I’m talking about is the kind that asks us to take the holiness of our lives seriously. Each day is fleeting. Our lives will not last forever. We are here for purposes, for meaning, not just for our endless to-do lists.

Too often, we make the mistake of putting the really important tasks off day after day, until we realize a sizable portion of our lives has passed us by.

This is why Pema Chodron’s book, Becoming Bodhisattvas, was originally entitled No Time to Lose. What she noticed when she studied Shantideva’s classic text The Way of the Bodhisattva was this consistent thread of urgency throughout.

Don’t wait. Don’t hesitate. We have no time to lose. Our lives are precious, and they deserve our attention right now.

Or, as Shantideva writes,

“Take advantage of this human boat.”

I’ve been pondering that phrase all week. Our lives will carry us somewhere, inevitably. Intention will do it. But so will time. We don’t have to be awake or aware for our lives to amble along.

If we want to take advantage of this human boat, this unique passage we have through our lives in these bodies enveloped in space and time, there’s no time to lose. It’s urgent that we are awake, and aware, and intentional.

Heroic perseverance brings us aliveness, and energy. It also brings us the right kind of urgency: the kind that asks us:

When will you do what you’ve been put here to do?

When will you step into your life?

When will you step away from what’s draining you?

When will your urgency come from what’s sacred, and not from what’s scary?

In the midst of the end-of-year holiday bustle, take time to name the urgency you’re carrying. Is it the kind that will spur you to take advantage of this human boat? Or is it the kind that will only make you feel miserable, stressed, and incomplete?

One is worth keeping. The other, you may want to put out by the curb with all your delivery boxes.

The urgency is real.  As long as you’re paying attention to the real urgency.

This post is part of the Paramita Project. You can read all my posts on practicing heroic perseverance here: http://www.beasoulninja.com/category/heroic-perseverance/