How Much Time Do You Actually Have Left?
The Weary Heart #30
The problem with most of us is that that we always think we have more time.
There are moments in life when a single realisation hits you harder than anything else. Like a sudden awareness. Or a wave of discomfort in your heart. A small but sharp fear you can’t fully articulate. It often happens in your thirties. Sometimes in your forties (hello fellow 40s!). And almost always by your fifties. And the realisation is this.
You do not have as much time as you thought you did.
You know this in theory. Everyone does. But there comes a day when the truth stops being theoretical and becomes unmistakably real. One morning you look in the mirror and notice that your face has changed in ways you cannot describe. Not in terms of wrinkles or signs of age. But in the heaviness behind the eyes. The weight of lived experience. The truth of the responsibilities you carry. And the knowledge that life will not pause for you to regain your balance.
And in that brief silence you begin to count… Not in years lived. But in years left.
Many people believe life moves fast. But I want to suggest something different. Life does not actually speed up. You do. You get busier. Become more preoccupied, carry more burdens than before, and take on more responsibilities, roles, and expectations placed on your shoulders.
Your mind becomes crowded and your days are filled with routines that repeat themselves without you noticing - morning routines, go to work, house chores, weekend duty with kids and their enrichment classes. Then one day you look up and find that a decade has passed. You barely remember how it happened.
It is a strange feeling to be busy every day and yet somehow lose entire YEARS. You wake up at the same hour. You get ready the same way. You rush through the same commitments. You answer the same emails. Handle the same problems. Fight the same battles. And then you hear yourself saying things like “Just one more week”, “Once things settle down”, “After this project”, or “When life becomes less busy”.
…But life never becomes less busy. The world never slows down. And time does not wait for you to be ready.
This is where the anxiety begins. Nothing overwhelming at the start. Just unsettling enough that you feel a shift inside your chest. Like a small tightening, you know? A sense that life is moving and you are not moving along with it. A sense that you are losing time faster than you can create meaning.
Allah reminds us of this truth in Surah Al-Asr.
وَالْعَصْرِ. إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ
“By Time. Indeed, mankind is in loss.”
It is one of the shortest surahs in the Qur’an. Yet it carries one of the most powerful truths. That the default state of a human being is loss. Loss of time, awareness, and opportunity. Loss of the moments that could have shaped a better version of you.
Why focus on time and not something else? Because once time is gone, everything else becomes affected.
When you think about how much time you actually have left, it is not to scare yourself into panic. It is to awaken the part of you that has been asleep for too long.
When You Realise You Do Not Have As Much Time As You Thought
There was a period of my life when I believed I had unlimited time to fix everything. My health. My habits. My finances. My relationships. My spiritual journey. My dreams. I kept imagining that my forties or fifties would be the years where everything fell into place.
As if life would magically become easier, and clarity would suddenly appear. I kept pushing things to an imaginary future, believing I could afford to delay. Until one day I realised something simple but painful. My future had arrived. Today is the day I used to dream of. And I was not fully prepared.
Most people do not fear death. They fear wasting their life. They fear reaching an age where they look back and realise they lived in autopilot. I scared myself a couple of times upon arriving home and parking my car, “Wait, I don’t remember driving here, the turns I needed to make, the stops and all. And suddenly I’m home”. Autopilot is cool but can be scary! At least for me.
Some people fear looking into the eyes of their children and knowing they were physically present on many occasions but often emotionally absent. They fear waking up one day realising the best version of themselves never emerged. Not because they were incapable. But because they were distracted.
There is a verse in Surah Al-Mu’minun (33:99) that captures this moment with striking clarity.
رَبِّ ارْجِعُونِ. لَعَلِّي أَعْمَلُ صَالِحًا فِيمَا تَرَكْتُ
“My Lord, send me back so that I may do good in what I left behind.”
It is the plea of someone who realises too late how much time they wasted. A person who sees everything clearly at the point where clarity no longer helps them. These are not the words of someone who lacked knowledge. These are the words of someone who lacked urgency.
The question is not how long you have lived. The question is how much of it was lived consciously. How many years were spent awake rather than asleep. How many decisions were made intentionally rather than emotionally. How many conversations you wish you had not postponed. How many dreams you left untouched because life was “too much.”
Time is not measured in hours. It is measured in moments of consciousness and awareness.
When do most people realise they do not have as much time as they once imagined. It might be after a health scare. Or after losing someone close to them. Or after watching their children grow so quickly that they feel a mixture of awe and sadness. Or after suddenly noticing that their parents have become much older. Or simply after hitting a birthday that once felt far away.
Busy Every Day, But Somehow Losing Years
There is a subtle fear that comes with this realisation. You begin to count the number of Ramadans left in your life. The number of years your children will still want you close. The number of years you have left with your parents. The number of years you have left to make amends or to build what matters to you. At first it feels overwhelming. But after the fear comes clarity, inshaAllah.
Time becomes valuable only when we become aware of its limits.
When you feel the weight of time passing, you start to reflect on the years you lost. You remember the seasons of your life where you were not fully present. The years when you lived for others but not for yourself. When fear, insecurity, or overthinking stopped you from moving forward. When you ran so fast after the dunya that you lost pieces of yourself along the way.
We all have lost years. Some due to stress. Some lost to grief. Some because of work. And some painfully lost to people who never deserved that much space in our hearts in the first place.
But here is something many people forget. Lost years do not mean lost potential. Allah can restore what time took from you. He can give you barakah in your time.
He can open doors that make up for every lost moment you regret. He can place more goodness in your next five years than you experienced in your last twenty! Yes He can! And He can bless your life with purpose so deep that the pain of the past becomes a footnote rather than a definition.
You may have lost years, but you still have years you can salvage and make meaning of.
Some people begin again in their sixties and achieve more peace, depth, and clarity than they ever had in their thirties. Some reconnect with their families in their forties and create bonds that reshape their entire future. Some come back to Allah in their fifties and experience a spiritual awakening that transforms them completely. And some rebuild their lives after decades of confusion and finally understand who they truly are.
Allah does not measure you by how long it took.
He measures you by whether you returned.
The Years You Lost, And The Years You Can Still Save
This is why the Prophet said,
“Take advantage of five before five.”
Your youth before old age.
Your health before sickness.
Your wealth before poverty.
Your free time before busyness.
Your life before death.
It is a reminder to awaken before life pulls you into a state where awakening becomes harder. Not impossible. But harder.
Now let me speak to the part of you that feels worn out:
You do not need to change everything. You only need to change direction.
Let us talk about the danger of being busy every day but losing years without noticing. When your life becomes a repeated cycle, time stops feeling like a gift and starts feeling like a burden. You move from task to task without awareness. You respond to life rather than lead it. Survive rather than live. This is how ten years can disappear while you were not looking. This is how your thirties can vanish while you were busy proving yourself.
Here is the deeper truth. Most people do not actually run out of time. They simply lacked clarity.
Time Feels Scarce Only When Clarity Is Missing
When you lack clarity, you spend your life reacting. You react to problems. To people. To emotions. To expectations. To crises. To noise. You begin to live in a constant state of catching up. And in that state, time becomes blurry. It moves past you quietly and then hits you all at once.
This is why many spiritual teachers say that the greatest form of wealth is not money. It is attention. The ability to pay attention to your inner world and to notice what truly matters. Time feels abundant only for the person who is present.
If you want to save the years you have left, you need to stop living on autopilot, and be in a state of khusyu’ and mindfulness.
You need evenings where you switch off the noise and reconnect with your heart. Mornings that start with intention rather than panic. You need moments of honest self-reflection. You need quiet time with Allah that softens the hardness accumulated in your chest.
You need slow breaths (try doing it now - inhale….exhale…). You need clarity about who and what deserves space in your life. You need courage to let go of what drains you. And to ask harder questions about the direction you are moving in.
Sometimes people say they want more time. But what they really want is more peace. More presence. More meaning and connection. And most importantly, they want alignment with the God-given purpose they lost along the way.
When you understand the value of your remaining years, you begin to change the small things first.
Prioritise your prayers.
Heal your relationships with sincerity.
Stop wasting energy on those who drain your spirit.
Treasure your parents more deeply because you realise their time is also slipping.
Become more patient with your children because you know their childhood will not last forever.
Become more intentional with your health because you want to honour the body Allah entrusted to you.
Start dreaming again.
Start believing again.
Start living with purpose again.
What Will Matter When Your Time Runs Out
Gratitude is the ability to see every day as a new opportunity. It is the ability to recognise that Allah still gives you time because He still believes in the goodness you can create. Gratitude is what transforms your remaining years into something meaningful.
People often ask, “How do I know if I am wasting time?”
The answer is simple.
You know you are wasting time when you feel disconnected from who you want to be.
Let us now reflect on death. Not in a morbid way. But in a clarifying way. Thinking about death is a sunnah. Not to scare you. But to awaken you. The Prophet said,
“Remember often the destroyer of pleasures.”
Because remembering death brings life to the heart. It breaks your attachment to the noise of the world. It redirects your priorities. It softens your anger. It humbles your ego. It grounds your aspirations. It reminds you that your legacy will outlive you. It reminds you that the world will move on quickly after you are gone. It reminds you that the only thing that truly remains is what you did for Allah and for the people you loved.
Death is not an ending. It is a mirror. It shows you what truly matters before your time runs out.
You do not need to fear how much time you have left. You need to fear being unprepared for the time you have left.
If your life ended tomorrow, would you leave behind forgiveness or resentment?
Would you leave behind ease or heaviness? Would you leave behind a heart that returned to Allah or a heart still trapped in its distractions? Would you leave behind unspoken love? Would you leave behind unfinished healing? Would you leave behind children who knew your presence or only your absence? Would you leave behind regrets that could have been resolved years ago?
Let this question wake you gently.
You still have time. Not unlimited. But enough. Enough to heal. Enough to change. Enough to begin again. Enough to rewrite the ending of your story.
To save the years you still have left.
“What has passed will never return. But if what is left is pure, then what is left is enough.”
Your past will not return. But the years ahead can be filled with sincerity, presence, meaning, and closeness to Allah. That is enough. More than enough. Because Allah can make one sincere year more valuable than ten distracted ones. He can make one moment of awareness more transformative than decades of sleep.
So ask yourself again.
How much time do you actually have left?
Not enough to waste.
But enough to change your life.
Your best days are coming ishaAllah,
MW