Aging Capriciously

What do you have time for today? They say we can tell what a person values by where they spend their time and what they spend their money on. A church leader I heard speak once said that people will often exaggerate what they do for others or what they really value. He went on to say that a true and accurate picture of their values could be gleaned from their daily calendar and their check books. Where they spent their time and what they spent their money on would truly show you what their values were. This would be an interesting activity.

For many of us, the things we say that we value would not line up with the time and money we spend. What about you? Have you ever taken the time to look at what you spend your time on and where the bulk of your money goes? What would such an examination of your calendar and checkbook say about your values? Would you be consistent with the values that you have expoused to your family and friends? Are you spending time on the right things and the right people? If not, why? What stops you from being more congruent with your espoused values? What would it take for you to have a better match with those things you say you value and how you really want to live your life?

“Wasted time is on my mind” – Song lyrics from the album “Wasted Time” by Black Dawn. Wasted time encompasses many things we do in a day. We can waste time by doing the wrong thing or spending time with the wrong people. We can waste time on the wrong goals. Increasingly it seems important to make the best use of our time. We all seem to have problems with having enough time so the time we do have becomes more precious. As we get older, we realize the value of time in all we do. We say we cannot afford to waste time, but inevitably we seem to have those days. Sometimes an entire day can feel wasted if we do not accomplish anything. Nevertheless, life is a series of unending cycles. Some days we waste more time than others, some days we will be more productive than others.

We are not machines that can reduce waste each day by small increments and get better and better until we achieve zero defects. As human beings, we will always be “defective.” That is part of the human condition. We will make mistakes, waste time and have days when we seem to be going backward rather than forward. The difference between the winners and the losers is what they do about those days. The winner learns from his/her mistakes and starts over. The loser gives up and simply quits. Wasted time is one of those migraines on the road to success. It is an obstacle to be overcome time and time again. It will never go away but we can get better at battling wasted time.

How often do you think about wasted time? What is wasted time? Wasted time for one person might be the most valuable time in the world for another person. What do you think is “wasted” time in your life? How much of wasted time fills your day? Why? What could you do instead of “wasting” time? What are the most productive uses of your time and the least productive? Can you let go of the least productive?

Well today my spouse reminded me that time does not always have to be serious. We need time to do nothing, time for fun and time when we are not thinking about time. Relaxation is a very important part of life. Studies show that people who are more relaxed and less stressed live longer. Many of these studies show people who are wealthier and more successful live longer and are also less stressed..

The richer lived longer, and the richer they were, the longer they lived. But more importantly was the relative wealth or success that the rich were enjoying. In the United States, while rich states have twice the wealth as others, they don’t have better health overall. But within each state, the richest people seem to live longer than the poorest. In other words, relative economic rank is what matters in determining how long we live. (Dan Sewell Ward, 2003, The Library of Alexandria, http://www.halexandria.org/dward081.htm)

The rich live longer because it is less stressful to be successful than unsuccessful. How often do we see that someone has committed suicide because they “feel like a failure?” You do not often hear of people killing themselves when they have just succeeded at some difficult task. Stress has also been shown to lower white blood cell counts and lead to lower immunity and greater susceptibility to a wide range of illnesses.

Chronic stress is a causative factor of diseases of the cardiovascular system, including hypertension, stroke and heart disease; a compromised immune system which can lead to infections, allergies or even cancer; and gastrointestinal conditions such as ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome. (Health Topics, http://www.50plushealth.co.uk/index.cfm?articleid=428 ).

Relaxation can reduce stress by substituting play and fun for worries and pessimism. When we relax our body recharges and we develop renewed resources for coping with life. Each of us only has a finite amount of coping energy. When we drop below a certain level, we experience increased stress and an increased inability to cope with the daily traumas of life. We need to recharge our psychic batteries or we will experience a meltdown.

So let’s make today a time for fun. What can you do for yourself that will be fun? No matter how busy you are today, try to find at least one thing that will be your treat for being so productive on all those other days. Do you regularly treat yourself to a day of fun? How often each day do you build some fun into your day? Do you think you are Superman or Superwoman? Do you want to live longer and happier? When will you start relaxing more?

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?