Too Late

As I sat tonight waiting for Yom Kippur services to begin, I noticed a friend who seemed to be all alone. At first, there was an empty seat beside her, as if she might be waiting for someone, but as people joined her row, it became clear that she was, indeed, on her own. I sat and watched the whole evolution, yet, by the time I put all the pieces together to think of asking her to sit with me, the service had begun, and it was too late.

Quite often, we are faced with situations that we can change. Things that seem not quite right or that are going in a direction that we can see needs to be altered. Yet, quite often, we wait to do anything. Perhaps, we think, the situation will fix itself, or perhaps, we reason, it is just supposed to be that way. So we let it go, and just follow the course of events. Sometimes things do work out, and sometimes we end up with that feeling of being too late. Of waiting too long to jump in to make positive change.

I had been wondering how I would process Yom Kippur this year. It is a day for stopping and evaluating and apologizing before moving on, and I really wondered if I would be able to do any of that, when most of what I do each day is simply forge ahead.

Yet, in that moment tonight, that moment when I was hit hard by my having waited until it was too late, I found a focus for my stopping. When we forge ahead, we certainly get things done, but we also make things go so fast--or at least allow them to--that before we know it, chances are gone. It is too late. I didn't like tonight's feeling of "too late," and if I keep simply forging ahead, I have a feeling I will be surrounded by "too late."

So if this year's holiday changes things, so that once in a while, I act BEFORE it is too late, speak up BEFORE it is too late to make a difference, then it will have been a success. And maybe that's what Yom Kippur is all about--reminding us that it is never really too late to change, never too late, as long as we are willing to look carefully at ourselves and our lives, and willing to make the choice to reach out to a friend, or to extend ourselves to something new. Because in life, we may always feel behind. But it is rarely really too late to make a change.