The last 100 days of 2026: What will you do with them?

100 days!

As of today 23rd September, there are 100 days left in the year. I like the number 100 because it feels deliberate, it is long enough to matter, and short enough to make you pay attention. 

Remember January? Do you remember the optimism, the lists, the things we were going to start, stop, become, find, gain, read, save, learn? Some of us have done very well. For some of us, our New Year's resolutions are gathering dust. The plans made in January may have been abandoned by February, postponed to March, reconsidered in June and completely forgotten around August. There are people who did not make resolutions, and that is ok. For some of us the year went in directions we could never have planned for on Jan 1st. 

But here we are, 100 days from the end. While walking this morning, I thought to myself, there are still 100 days between now and the end of the year. There are 100 opportunities and still enough year to do something differently, to start something we keep postponing, to finish something we started, learn something, leave something, build something, repair something, forgive something, live a little differently.

100 days is not insignificant. Think about it... if you walk every day for 100 days, your body will know and feel different. If you read every day for 100 days, you will finish several books. If you call someone you love everyday, something in you may deepen. Save a little every day and you will have extra spending money for Christmas. Write every day for 100 days and by December, you will have pages that did not exist today. Pray, run, sleep earlier, drink more water. 

For the next 100 days, I am choosing gratitude. Every day, I will write down one thing I am grateful for. I will go old fashioned and use a notebook, not write on my phone. Every day I will write one thing that I am grateful for and by the end of the year, I will have 100 entries. 

I know that on some days it will be something exciting, while on other days it might just be that the sun came out, some body made me laugh, my knees did not hurt, I had a good cup of coffee, or I woke up.

There is so much happening around us and within us too. Life can become noisy with disappointment, uncertainty, grief, ambition, unfinished business, and things we cannot control. Gratitude does not make those things disappear, nor does it pretend everything is fine when it is not. Gratitude reminds us that even while life is difficult, there is still life. 

I am not giving myself 10 goals for these 100 days. I am choosing one small practice and giving it 100 days to see what it does to me. What would you do for these last 100 days? You could choose anything and it does not have to be impressive and nobody needs to applaud you for it. In face you do not even have to tell anyone. Just choose something that matters to you and give it the next 100 days. 

I also ask, if these were not just the last 100 days of the year, but the last 100 days you had, what would you do with them? Who would you spend them with? What would you stop postponing? Who would become unimportant? Where would you go? Who would you forgive? What would you say? What would finally begin?

Thankfully we are not counting down our last 100 days, but counting down the year and this as well is reason enough not to waste them. From where my feet are, 100 days is still a lot of life.