This is your life - is it everything you wanted?

I just found out that my uncle died last night. I haven't seen this uncle since I was 7 or 8 years old, but all my memories of him are good ones.

Thanks to Facebook, I had just started connecting with relatives on my father's side of the family, some I haven't seen in over 30 years.

It would be easy for me to blame my parent's break-up for losing track of this part of my family, but that blame could really only be extended to my 18th birthday. Once I turned 18, I was a free agent, and there was absolutely nothing keeping me from making some phone calls, or driving a few hours to visit my family. Nothing but perhaps my fear of being rejected all over again. But time changes things, and I may have been able to re-connect much sooner and added more happy memories and closer relationships to my life if I had only taken the initiative.

So my message today is "Don't put it off!" If you have lost touch with people that were once important in your life, pick up the phone, send a letter or postcard, get in your car and drive. Don't wait until it is too late to re-connect. If you reach out and the person doesn't respond, at least you took the high road and made the effort. And maybe that effort will pay off down the road when that other person realizes what a waste the time lost has been.

I am now 3000 miles away from most of my family members. Makes it a little more difficult to actually spend time with them other than by email, phone, and social networking sites. But most of us are planning a reunion during my next visit, which will be great. I just wish I had been seeing them on my earlier visits all these years.

Part of the secret to having the life you really want is the lack of regrets. Don't wait until something you could be doing today turns into a regret that can't be changed.

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken
Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes
This is your life and today is all you've got now
Yeah, and today is all you'll ever have
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes

This is your life are you who you want to be
This is your life are you who you want to be

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

And you had everything to lose