Seeing the Grand Canyon last week was a truly overwhelming experience – no wonder it’s rated as one of the seven wonders of the world. 

What an incredible vision! And to think that what we saw was a tiny fraction of a 446 river kms. long, 29 kms. wide and 1.6 kms. deep natural wonder.

It’s amazing to think that soft elements like water and wind have over a million years worked their daily magic to create this scene.

My sense of awe and wonder was reflected on the faces of many others around me, especially as the setting sun made for an even more spectacular experience, its light transforming the stratified and multi-hued sections.

Being in the presence of this, I began to think about us humans relative to the existence of nature and such magnificence. 

As a fellow traveller remarked,  “Here we get to see some million years fossilized in our reality of time and space. This is what a tangible expression of million years looks like!”  ( Studies have it between 6 – 70 million years).

We measure our life in terms of a limited time span – by comparison our time on planet earth is not even a blink. I couldn’t help but reflect on the earlier settlers of this land – the Indians including the ‘Anasazi’  – a Navajo name regarded as a slur by modern Pueblo.

These descendants still make pilgrimages to their ancestral village sites, have oral histories about them, and maintain shrines in the Four Corners region of the Colorado Plateau, according to the US Department of the Interior.

I wondered about the richness and wisdom of these ancient cultures that we seem to have lost and what we could have learned from them.

And then I began to think about matters much closer to home  – about what truly matters in my life and how I can best live that.

Not surprisingly, family, friends, meaningful purpose and connections came out tops.  And of course, good health – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual – to sustain the above.

So how about you?

In thinking about the limited time scale, how might this affect your choices, family life and or decision-making?

What might you do differently?  What might you let go off and what might you embrace?

Without even being there in that great chasm, how do you want to make your few years on planet earth count?   Are you living what truly matters to you?

Jasbindar Singh is an executive coach and business psychologist who loves helping her clients be the absolute best they can be.