Eric,
You say,
“Maybe this is the time I need to start contemplating dhamma concepts?”
If I may ….NOW is the time, but how much will depend on the stage in life you are at. If I were younger coming to Buddhadhamma, still married and with a wife and 2 children to support, I do not know how much time I would have been able to dedicate to it, but certainly it would be less.
Now, past my mid-sixties, with life-energy at a premium and with all the household chores, shopping and so on, I have been diagnosed with CLL – that’s the fourth stage, the most benign form, of leukemia. The specialist, an old-school doc, announced very slowly and deliberately: ‘Ummm .. this is a very common condition with people your age, you know. You may live 15 years more; probably you will die due to something else before that !!! ” Very direct, good.
Thing is, there was a sense of urgency inside me the moment I discovered this site a year ago (I could not ignore the age factor; but even without that, I can be dead the next moment). Now it is no longer a question of ‘there may not be much time left’, but of ‘there is not much time left’ The whole future, which is endless, depends on that little time left. On NOW. Not just a matter of life and death, but of what kind of life after death. The stress of all that is relieved only by seeing that progress on the Path has in fact been made.
Finally, by meditation is not necessarily meant sitting down and doing formal techniques. There are many related posts on the site; just go to the Bhavana(meditation) section. The one I apply most of the time, and the one I have found out to be most effective in my case, because it is compatible with my nature, is the contemplation/reflection kind done when engaged in other activities, and that is, for the greater part of my waking hours.
Much Metta to you