Some questions don’t land softly. They arrive like a stone through glass. This one did:
“How many next times do you have left?”
I heard it in a talk recently. Simple. Disarming. It’s stuck with me like a pebble in a shoe. And it’s particularly relevant here, in the quiet beauty of Lynton and Lynmouth—villages that appear timeless, but maybe sometimes it feels like time is slipping away.
We live surrounded by nature’s rhythm—the waves, the cliffs, the moor—but many of us are caught in another kind of cycle: a psychological hamster wheel. Routines become ruts. Conversations repeat. Days blend. “Next time” becomes a mantra, a placeholder for the things we mean to do: reconnect, change jobs, start that project, say how we really feel.
But how many next times do we really have left?
The Planning Fallacy: Why We Overestimate Our Tomorrows
This mindset is shaped by something psychologists call the Planning Fallacy—the tendency to underestimate how long things will take and overestimate how many opportunities we’ll have. We imagine more time, more chances, more do-overs than reality will give us.
In places like ours, where life moves slowly and social roles are entrenched, this bias can deepen. People assume they’ll get to things “one day”—after the tourist season, after winter, after the kids grow up, after the next round of visitors. The trouble is, “after” rarely arrives with the clarity or energy we expect.
“Procrastination is the thief of time.” — Edward Young
The phrase still holds. It’s not laziness—it’s a quiet erosion of what matters. Left unchecked, it steals the days we thought we had.
In Lynton and Lynmouth, it’s easy to feel both safe and stifled. Close-knit communities offer support—but also carry a quiet pressure to conform, to keep the peace, to not rock the boat. So dreams get shelved, risks avoided, conversations left unspoken.
There’s a local saying: “Tide’ll turn.” And yes, tides do turn. But they don’t bring back lost time.
Interrupting the Drift
The speech that inspired this post asked more:
“Are you happy where you are? Who wants to be more? Who wants to be better?”
These aren’t questions meant to shame. They’re invitations. To get honest. To shift from passive to active. To notice if you’re living by design or by default.
The goal isn’t a radical overhaul. It’s about reclaiming your agency in small, regular ways. Saying yes to something meaningful. Saying no to something soul-draining. Telling someone how you really feel. Making peace with what’s behind you. Making space for what’s ahead.
Beginning Again—Here, Not Later
Time is undefeated. But it’s not your enemy. It’s a mirror.
So take a look. Not at the town. At yourself.
If you stopped waiting for the perfect moment, what would you try?
If you stopped assuming there’d be another next time, what would you say, start, or stop today?
You don’t need permission. You just need to begin.
Where will you begin?
