Forty Seconds. Poem by Carl R Nicolas

Time is of the essence,
and it was never meant to be wasted...

Life once told this lesson
through the story of an incredible mountain climber,
a man who conquered the highest peaks of the world,
a man who broke records
where the air itself was thin...

One day, high above the earth,
nearing what he believed was the final stage,
he paused in confidence...

Certain he had reached the summit,
he unattached his safety pack...

For a moment,
victory felt certain as always...

But the mountain does not forgive certainty...over confidence...

His grip slipped...

And suddenly…
the champion of the heights
was falling from them...

Forty seconds...

That was all that remained,
a forty-second descent
between life
and darkness...

In those final seconds
no applause echoed,
no trophies mattered...

Only flashes...
family,
dreams,
regrets,
accomplishments,
hope that somehow
he might still survive...

Forty seconds…
the final measure
of a lifetime...

And in that brief fall
a truth thundered louder
than the wind against the cliff: Every minute matters.
Every second counts...

Because life itself
is made of moments
no longer than those forty seconds...

So value time...
Spend it wisely.
Love deeply.
Build something meaningful.
Leave a legacy that breathes beyond you...

For at the end of the day, we may discover
that all we ever truly had
were a few precious
40 seconds,
and the choice
of how we lived them...
Carl Nicolas.