Thoughts about Time

Part 26 in a series by Karen A. Stevenson, President, Studio K Salon

With every second you have spent reading this paper, even this article, time has passed.  You will never have those minutes again; they have left never to return.  Time continues to come at us with vengeance and without missing a beat.

So, what do you do with your time?  Do you spend it wisely?  Do you cherish it?  Do you grow with the time you have?  Do you treat it as though it is faking its intensity and will surely come again?   Are you calling it’s bluff?

Sadly to say, time passes without being recognized.

Time to make that phone call to someone you’ve not spoken to for months. Time to clean out your closet, to communicate effectively to your boss, time to reflect on your wrongdoings and make some amends, hug your children, time to sit quietly to analyze or meditate on our own lives, where we’ve been, where we are going.  Time to tell someone that you love them.

All the clichés say that time is of the essence, time passes so quickly, and it’s about time!  I never knew that time was so mean spirited that it snuck up on you and one day glancing in the mirror you wonder ‘where has all the time gone?’

As I sit here in my office typing this, I hear a strange sound coming from the exterior wall.  Sounds like the house is creaking!  Looking out the window, I notice a red headed woodpecker is thinking he can have his way with my exterior trim!   Surely, HE has got plenty of time!

In certain circumstances you may feel you have too much time on your hands, and therefore get lazy about life.  Or, is it that you just got disrespectful of the time you have?  Surely there are times in all of our lives when time seems almost our friend, then other times when it is our cruelest enemy.  Times it is our friend is when we have young children and the daily routine of taking care of them, watching them take their first footsteps, watching them go from baby food to big kid food.  Time seems to be our friend when we are on vacation, and taking time to smell the roses and see the sights.  However, time isn’t our friend when we are in a depressed situation, unhappy, or things aren’t going our way.  Instead, we feel like time is mean spirited and we wish that all that time would go away!

There are challenging books out there on the market, one in particular that I see many clients recently reading is “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren.  Apparently he feels he has discovered what could be the answer to getting down to the nitty gritty about life.

With “so little time, and so much to do” it may be good for someone like Rick Warren to help us define and fine-tune our lives.  Seems there are either people way too over extended with their time, or people swimming around in circles trying to figure out what they are to do with all the time on their hands.  How sad that there are not many people in the category of having the balance of their time.  Ideally having plenty of time to smell the roses and enjoy the quiet moments, yet also efficient in spending the time they need with volunteering, work, errands, responsibilities, family, spiritual nurturing, and all the other responsibilities we seem to carry.

Knowing we are supposed to grow in life, spiritually, emotionally and physically, as well as intellectually, it would be a sad thing to confess that there was none of that growth going on.  That would probably be a very irresponsible misuse of our time.  Not that we are to be overly ‘driven’ people that have to always be go, go, going and never stop!  I suppose it is a race that we are running, some may get there sooner than others, and at the end, the question remains, do we ever arrive?  

If you were to take five, or ten minutes out of your day every day, and quietly meditate on how you would spend your time today, would it help?  Would you give your child that simple smile that would make her day?  Would you squeeze your wife or husband’s hand and let them know you care?  Would you make sure you didn’t gossip behind your bosses back, instead try to get to know who he or she is and be a bit more patient?  Would you savor over your salad at lunch and notice how good it tastes?  Would you have sincere interest in the conversation you have with a co-worker rather than blowing them off as you walk toward the coffee machine?  Would you really have that spat with your teenager? 

Take the time to think about how you spend that precious thing called time. 

Take the time to treat it with the respect it commands, and with the dignity it deserves.  Being caught up in all the little swirly things may not be the best way to handle your time.  Re-think how you handle each moment, and see if priorities may be a bit jumbled up and need some rearranging so you have the time to spend in the correct manner for the things that matter most in life.