Is life short or long?

I hear so many one-liners that address this question. Some people say life is too short. Others imply that life is long because there's 'always more time' to do this or that. Which is it? Obviously this depends on a multitude of factors including but not limited to current age, health, and religious/spiritual beliefs. Let's make a few assumptions before we go further. Let's assume, regardless of our religious beliefs, we believe that our current time on earth is the only time we have to control. Let's also assume that we are of young to relatively young age and are in decent health. Therefore we have no extraneous factors that could influence our thought process in the following hypothetical situations.

We all hear people saying things like, "I wish I could just move out West and make a living doing (x)," or, "I know I'd be much happier if I just quit my job and went back to school." I'm sure there are many more 'what if's' out there that pertain to our happiness and joy in life. Why don't we ever do these things? Is life long enough that we assume that these options will always be possible?

If history, and especially the current state of global affairs, can teach us anything it's that life definitely errors on the side of being too short. Why doesn't that person quit their job to go back to school? Why doesn't that person pick up and start a new life on the West coast? I think we all know the answer: fear. We're afraid of the uncertain. We are more afraid of that uncertainty than of the certainty of being knowingly less happy that we know we could be...think about that. That must be some fear.

As Andy Dufrane said in The Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy livin,' or get busy dyin.'"

Red's (Morgan Freeman's character) response to this during a personal epiphany is, "Goddamn right..."