All rights reserved by the author
9 October 2026
There are things we keep telling ourselves we will do when life becomes a little easier.
A journey we will take when work settles down. A book we will finally read when there is more time. A friend we will call when the days are less crowded. Sometimes even a simple afternoon with someone we love gets pushed aside because there always seems to be something more urgent.
I have often wondered why we are so confident about tomorrow.
Perhaps because tomorrow feels generous. It seems to have room for everything that today cannot accommodate.
But years have a quiet way of changing that calculation.
The things we postpone do not always disappear. They simply wait somewhere in the background, until one day we realise that the person who made those plans is older, the circumstances are different, and some opportunities have quietly closed.
This is not an argument for living recklessly or abandoning responsibility. Most of us have obligations that cannot simply be put aside.
It is only a reminder to leave a little space for life itself.
Call the person.
Read the book.
Take the journey if you can.
Sit somewhere without needing to be productive.
Tell someone that you remember.
We often imagine that the great moments will be the ones we remember most. I am no longer so sure. Perhaps, years from now, what stays with us will be something much smaller—a conversation that lasted longer than expected, an unexpected laugh, a road taken without much planning, or an ordinary afternoon that somehow felt complete.
Time rarely tells us when it is giving us a memory.
It simply gives us the moment.
And then it moves on.
Rajat Chandra Sarmah, Guwahati, Assam, India, Instagram @rajatchandrasarmah, YouTube: conversewithasmile, email rajatchandrasarmah@gmail.com
