“How did it get so late so soon?” ― Dr. Seuss
Why do we always think there is more time?
Even though we know these lives we are currently leading aren't infinite?
We waste so much.
We always seem to assume that there is another chance. Another opportunity. That change will just happen. That time passes by and life just happens to us.
To an extent that is true. It certainly was for me.
I'm 49 now and hopefully I've learned a little more about time, how to appreciate it and grasp it with both hands. I say hopefully.
It's not that I feel time is running out, maybe that I have wasted so much. On working too hard, being miserable, being ill, being angry and unhappy. Of course all valid reasons and emotions to have but I know I have stayed in there for far too long waiting for my life to change.
I waited for the good stuff I felt I didn't truly deserve.
I waited for the opportunities to present themselves instead of seeking some out.
I waited for happiness to enter my life instead of attempting to change the circumstances that made me unhappy in the first place.
I didn't value my time because I didn't value my life. Certainly not myself.
“Time well spent adds to life well lived.” ― Martin Ugwu
I have been so guilty of this. The undervaluing of myself that led to an endless to do list of jobs and tasks and goals to complete. Pushing me steadily into procrastination at even the thought of starting. Because how will I ever reach the end so why start?
Procrastination and disassociation via smart phone is also quite the norm these days too. Another one I have had to fight in the striving to learn more, be more and create more.
I'm also not saying life hack every single part of your life to ensure you get things done better and faster. That is certainly not my message. It's about how you value your time.
I love a morning when I can hear the rain hit the leaves of the trees gently, when I can lay in my bed with the gentle purr of my beloved cat next to me. Knowing I have the time to read a chapter of a book with a cup of tea.
I love time like right now as I am writing. Ólafur Arnalds playing softly in the background, candle light flickering and incense softly wafting through the air of my old tenement flat.
I love times when I am so excited about what I am creating for all of you, normally with some other wonderful person that lights me up that I can't stop myself taking endless notes and moving around the house. Just for the sheer joy of a new idea, a new energy, a shift in brainwaves and being connected to another.
These are all moments of my daily life that I never could have dreamed of even a few years ago.
Of course I still have to do the shopping, the cleaning, sleep, eat and pay my bills and taxes. But those things do not drive me to get up in the morning.
We stand to gain a lot in the way of happiness and well-being by seeing time as our most valuable resource.
It promotes happiness. It promotes social connections. It promotes satisfaction in all areas of life.
I will leave you a short text on time from one of my favourite books. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.
And an astronomer said, Master, what of Time?
And he answered: You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing. Yet the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness, And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream. And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless? But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.
Embrace the past and all it has taught you. Honour it even
And embrace the future with a thirst and longing for all the moments. The quiet still and receptive. The peaceful and pondering. The creative, connected and brave moments.
All of these moments where time doesn't exist.
Where you simply are.
Where you value life and you in it.