Aging Capriciously

Do you remember the song “Never on a Sunday?” Do you know what you could “Never do on a Sunday?” Do you know why you could “Never do it on a Sunday?” In the song, “Never On a Sunday”, you could not kiss the heroine, because it was her “day of rest.” For thousands of years, Sunday has represented a day of rest. Whether it actually has been a day of rest is a different issue.

When I was a small child, Sundays represented going to visit relatives and having friends stop over after church to visit. Sundays have always seemed more peaceful to me and as a day to catch up and really rest from the toils of the week. I still like to visit people on a Sunday although this has become more difficult due to the busy schedule everyone has. It does not seem that people take much time anymore visiting each other on Sundays. Sunday has more become for me a time to visit older relatives in nursing homes now. Many people simply use it to work in their gardens, fix their homes up, get some extra work done or do school work.

What do Sundays represent for you? Are Sundays a day of rest for you? A time of prayer and reflection? A time to catch up on work that you did not have time for during the week? What do you “Never do on a Sunday?” What do you spend your time doing on Sundays? What would you really like to do this Sunday? What stops you from doing it? Go ahead and do it anyway.

“Pleasure comes, but not to stay; even this shall pass away.” (All Things shall pass away. John Bartlett (1820–1905). We have all heard that life is a series of ups and downs. Without pain, we do not know pleasure. The states we find ourselves in each day may vary as much as the weather. One day I am energetic and happy, the next day I am depressed and lethargic. Moods wax and wane like the tides. How can I be happy each day?

If we were spirits rather than temporal beings it might be possible to remain constant and unchanging. However, the nature of being temporal means that we will forever experience cycles in our life: cycles of happiness, cycles of pain, cycles of birth, cycles of death and cycles of aging. Nothing is permanent in this world. This is the meaning of temporality. Should I be sad or angry at the thought that whatever I have today could be swept away tomorrow? And if not tomorrow, then someday for sure! All temporal things will perish.

How attached are you to the things in life? Are you prepared to accept that all things are very transient and impermanent? Are your Prada purses and Gucci jeans vain attempts to gain some type of immortality? What vanities do you have that you try to hold onto? What things have the most meaning to you? Do you stop to acknowledge the people and things that really count in your life? Do you realize that they could all be swept away tomorrow? Are you valuing the people, loved ones and friends that really matter by spending your time on them? Do you value your soul as much as your clothes?

“If we cannot do everything at once, let us do one at a time.” – Thomas Jefferson. For some of us, starting anything is an overwhelming task. We are bogged down by the complexity of the project and do not know where to start. We fail to remember that all great journeys start with the first step. How many times have you heard that phrase? By now you are probably sick of it! However, if it fails to inspire you, then what will? Rome was not built in a day! A stitch in time saves nine! Haste makes waste! All of these aphorisms are just little tricks to help us remember that we can’t do it all at once. Anything worth doing takes time may be another cliché but it is also an iron law of the universe.

Tiger Woods practices more than 10 hours each day. Wayne Gretsky, Jean Claude Killy, Valentino Rossi and many other great world champions all started when they were less than five years old. If you link genetics, an early start and much time spent in practice, you have a formula for success. Wal-Mart started in 1954 in Bentonville, Arkansas, a town most of us have never heard of. In 1985, I had never even been to or heard of a Wal-Mart. By 2005, it was the largest corporation in the world – an overnight success? All too many people look for luck to make their day. They hope to win the lottery, strike it big at the local casino or score on some big class action lawsuit. Waiting for luck is the greatest waste of time I can think of. We make our own luck.

Were Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, two of the richest people in the world lucky? Did they get their money by winning a lottery?? If you want to get lucky, start by putting one foot forward and then following it with the other. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. If you want to have a great life and a great adventure, start now. What is one thing that you can do today that will start you on that great journey? Pick one thing today that and do it. What is the next step that you can take on your great adventure?

Priorities, the average person spends 3 hours per day watching TV and less than one hour per week in any kind of regular exercise either physically or spiritually. Mark Twain said that the person who does not read good books is no better off than the person who cannot read. We admire people who accomplish great feats of skill, but do we realize how much time and practice went into these accomplishments.

We are asked to help someone and we say “Sorry, I have no time.” We come to the end of the week and we wonder where all the minutes went. We look at our life and lament that we just do not have enough time to do what we need to get done. The rich, the successful, the extraordinary people have the same amount of time we have. Every one of us wakes up each day with a new bag of minutes. The clock resets at 12 AM and we all start fresh with 24 hours. The average person leads an average life and wastes an average amount of time. The successful person does not waste a minute because time is precious.

Relaxation is important to each of us and needs to be included in our days, but excessive relaxation is a form of sloth and waste. What did you learn from this week’s football game or the new TV series about sex and crime? How much do these shows help you in your marriage, job or life goals? Which is more really important for your life? Do you fill your life with meaningless activities or do you fill it with activities that will enrich your life and those around you? Do you aspire to be average or would you like to be above average in at least one area of your life? Are you willing to do what it will take to be above average? What are your priorities this week?

Here is one of the most useful thoughts about time that I have ever heard:

“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” – Matthew 6:25, 33-34

It does not matter whether you are Christian, Moslem, Jewish or even an atheist. The above reflection helps us to put our life in perspective. We worry, worry, and worry about things that we cannot control.

Another thought about time, that I always find useful is from the Alcoholics Anonymous book: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – The Serenity Prayer of AA. What do both of these thoughts tell you about time and about life? Are you too concerned with the future or the past to live your life today? Do you worry about things before they happen? Are you a worry-wart? Are you trying so hard to control life to prevent anything bad happening that you have no room for the good to happen?

What if you lived your life more in the present? Do you really know what you can control and what you cannot control? How can you get more balance and start living more in the present? Would you be happier if you could?

This is a story about an older woman who had watched her life fly away and did not feel that she had really lived it. When she turned sixty, she started thinking “Well, I will have about 20 years to live and I really want to make them count.” Therefore, she went out and bought 365 marbles for each year she would have left to live. (365 marbles x twenty years). This seemed like a lot of marbles but she put them in a big bin in her house and each day, she took one out and put it in her pocket to think about.

The years continued to go by and she said the exercise became almost a habit, until one day she reached in the bin and noticed she only had 365 marbles left, exactly enough for one year. From here on out, her attitude started to change dramatically. Each marble she withdrew took on increasing significance. The days and marbles continued to go by, but not without her trying to live each day to the fullest. Before she died, she said the activity made her aware of how precious each of our days really are. We take each day for granted until we only have a few left. Some of us don’t even realize this fact until it is too late.

Create a bowl for yourself. How long do you think you will live? How many marbles do you have left in your bowl? Do you count each day as a blessing, or can you hardly wait until it is over so you can get on to tomorrow? Do you throw away your week days and live for the weekends? Do you truly appreciate the time you are given each day and make the most of it? Do you treat each day as the gift of life it is? When will you start appreciating the time you are given?

Time consuming generally means something that takes a great deal of time. To consume means to eat, so something that is “time consuming” literally eats our time. Have you ever made a list of time eaters? Probably they will be different from time wasters. Time wasters generally have little or no value, like waiting in line at an airport. However, time consumers may have a lot of value but they still take a great deal of time to accomplish.

It is time consuming to paint your house, find a new babysitter or complete your B.A. degree. Nevertheless, none of these things is a waste of time. There are so many time consuming activities that we could do and that would add value to our lives. How can we get over the hurdle that these large consumptions of time present? We have so many things do to; it is hard to spend a large amount of time on any one activity or effort. Time consumers bog us down and force us to ignore other time activities that are screaming for our attention. I was amazed to read that Truman Capote spent ten years writing and researching his novel in “Cold Blood.” It simply amazes me that someone could spend ten years on such an activity. Of course, his effort was well worth the time spent. Many of us would want a guarantee that our time was going to be productive before we would commit a large block of time. Unfortunately, there are often no guarantees that our time spent will reward us with increased value in the future. Even getting a diploma is no guarantee of getting a good job.

How long should we invest in one activity? How can we tell when a time consumer really will be worth the effort? Is there any way to measure the value of time consumers? What do you think?

Have you ever wished you could go back in time or wanted to build a time machine and travel back to some event in the distant past? Thinking about time travel is an interesting endeavor. Most of us would like to be able to visit the past. A most provocative idea is that we could somehow make things right by changing what we did wrong. However, whenever this is attempted in the movies or in stories, inevitably something unexpected also changes and the results are never positive. Of course, this does not dissuade anyone from trying.

The question then is can we change the past? We all seem to think that we have to go back in the past to change it. Perhaps it is possible to undo mistakes from the past today. Perhaps it is never too late. Perhaps we do not have to go back in time to change the past.

If you could visit the past and undo something or change the course of some event, what would you choose to change? Why? What if you could change it today? Would you try? Why not? What are you doing today that you might regret in the future? Do you have time today to change it?

As you read my blogs this year, you might want to reflect on how much time you have spent in your life, how wisely you have spent it and how much time in your life you have left to spend. A wise man once said: “live each day as though it will be your last, but spend your money as though you will live forever.” No one knows exactly how much time they have left in their lives. The wisest path for all of us is to live our lives by making the most meaningful choices in respect to both our time and money.

The short ideas, quotes, questions and exercises in my blogs are all about helping you to think about time differently. There are too many books and lectures about “time management” and I have no desire to simply add to the pile. Managing time is only a small aspect of our ability to deal with the time in our lives. Tips on managing time do not deal with the underlying influences that time has on our lives. If you want to better manage time, you must first see time for what it really is. I want my blogs to help provide a new way each day for you to think about the “time” in your life.

Whether or not time exists in a physical sense, it is certainly a reality in our lives. If I don’t show up for work on time or keep an appointment on time, it may cost me my job or a friend. Some of us control our time better than others and some of us can never seem to control our time. The daily thoughts and challenges in each of my blogs are designed to help you think about and deal more effectively with the seconds and minutes of your life. The more zealous you are about answering the questions and conducting some of the suggested activities, the more valuable these blogs will be for you. Thus, do not simply read these blogs. Take a pencil and paper and when you have some time. answer the questions that I pose. This will bring home the reality of time for you and help you to see what issues and challenges time holds for you.

If death did come knocking on your door to take you by the hand and lead you out of this world, what affairs would you most want to get in order before you would leave? What is stopping you from getting your house in order? Do you think you will live forever? The Cheyenne had a war cry that went: “It is a good day to die.” Are you ready to die today? What would you need to change before you could answer yes to the question?

Sorry, but I went to Arizona to furnish my new house there and did not have the time to find to do my posts. I did start again with the New Year and will try to catch up. However, I would like to post this one which should have been posted on New Years Day. I will try to post one each day this year and have a title instead of a day to post.

January – the beginning of a new year. This is the time when we make new resolutions and promises galore. A time to begin over and to make dreams and wishes come true that did not work out the year before. We bring in the New Year as a new born baby, full of promise and youth. Some critics might look at the trail of broken promises from bygone years and laugh at the efforts of others. Such people disregard the possibility of hope and change. Yes, we are better this year than we were last year and we will continue to grow and change and look at the folly of our past lives. Hope as they say springs eternal in the human breast and what would we be without it? We need to try again and when we fail, we try again. The only failure is when we stop trying. So I say: “Disregard the naysayers, go ahead and set some new goals and new dreams. Stretch your vision and your horizons. People do not perish because of their dreams; they perish because of a lack of dreams.