Aging Capriciously

Let’s KILL some time today. If you are not afraid of killing time and are fearless of the consequences, here is a list my spouse suggested of time killers that she likes:

• Driving around with no place to go or reason to go anywhere
• Suduku puzzles
• Computer solitaire
• Sitting in the sun reading a book
• Sleeping in
• Playing an instrument for fun and not practice
• Window shopping when she does not plan to buy anything

These are just some of the ways that she likes to kill time. If none of the above ideas works for you, try one of your own ideas. Imagine a book not based on time management but on “killing time.” A book that is full of creative and imaginative ways to do nothing productive. Sounds sinful, like eating desert before your meal, or having two popcorns at the movie theater or goofing off when you should be working. Well, the world has a lot more books on managing time than on killing time. Perhaps a few days a year devoted to not being productive would be good for all of us. It might lower the national stress level. Indeed, a measure or Index of National Stress might be a good tool for determining how well the country is doing. Perhaps if stress levels were lower, the crime rates or at least road rage cases would fall.

How does it feel to kill time? Do you feel guilty? Can you take a day without doing anything productive? When was the last time you really goofed off and had a lazy day? Do you ever goof off at work? If we behaved more like little children, do you think we would have more fun albeit be less productive? Could you survive the guilt?

The British writer John B. Priestly once observed “A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.” I suppose this means that other people are not keeping time for us or putting us on a schedule. How often do we “meet” the clock only because we worry about offending others? Would we be as scheduled if the feelings of our friends, relatives and employers were not an issue? Who among us would wear a watch or bother keeping time, if there were no consequences to be paid for “being late” or not being “on time?”

What if there was a vacation where you could get away from time? Let’s call it a “Time Free Vacation.” Here is what a “Time Free Vacation” would be like. No one is allowed to wear a watch. There are no schedules to be met. You can get up whenever you want to. You can eat whenever you want to and leave when you want to. Everything you want to see and do is available anytime you want to visit. There are no start and end times or open and close times. Furthermore, you do not have to be home at any special time, so you could continue this vacation as long as you desired.

How many of you would take such a vacation? Can you imagine what would it would be like to live like this for a month? How about an entire year? Do you think you would be able to come back to keeping time again? Would the world miss you while you were out of the loop?

When you go on a vacation, do you leave your watch at home? Is it possible for you to forget about time, even when you are on a vacation? What keeps you married to time? Have you ever considered a divorce? How about taking one day off a month or even a year from time? Give yourself a gift of a “Time Free Vacation.”

Two seconds can be a lifetime. Your entire life can sometimes pass before your eyes in two seconds. If you have ever had a close encounter or accident, the world can seem like it is standing still while your life flashes ahead. In two seconds, a vehicle moving at 70 mph will travel 204 feet. If you see something in the road and you blink, you have just traveled 102 feet before you have even reacted. Two seconds can mean the difference between life and death several times over.

We never appreciate time as much as when we have a close call. A close call (maybe even less than two seconds) brings us face to face with death. Your heart will beat so hard that it may feel like you have just finished a marathon. After a close call, many people go into a state of shock even without any injuries. Several years ago while on a trip to London, I stepped off the curb and looking the wrong direction (it appears buses in England drive on the left side of the street), I stepped in front of a moving bus. Karen pulled me back just before the bus would have flattened me. My heart was beating a mile a minute and I could not believe I was still alive. Karen’s admonition to be more careful mattered very little to me at this time.

After a close call is over and you have calmed down, you may reflect on how precarious life really is and perhaps on what you could do to use it more wisely. None of us need these traumas in our life, but having had several of them myself, I appreciate life a great deal more. I seldom take death lightly or for granted and while I am not morbid about it, I live each day with the possibility of death in my mind. I think these events have made me more appreciative of the brief candle that life is.

Have you ever had a two second close call? What do you remember about the event? How did it change your life? Do you take life for granted or do you live each day fully knowing it may be your last?

No time for justice! Some people do not believe that there is any justice in the world. Others believe that justice will always occur but that it just takes time. No doubt today we will hear more than we want to on this subject. With the final verdict in for the Casey Anthony trail, there is both relief and outrage over the verdict. Perhaps my thoughts on the subject of justice will be more appropriate than another opinion on her guilt or innocence. By now, most of us will have our minds made up anyway.

Do you remember a quote that describes justice grinding like an old mill wheel, slowly but inevitably. Many believe that justice will not be found in this world but only in some after life when all accounts are called to order. The Old Testament notes that “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.” Perhaps, we will not find justice on earth but somewhere between heaven and hell, we will all be judged and sentenced. I have always wondered where Hitler and other mass murderers would end up and what criteria could be used to judge them.

In the USA, the Bill of Rights (Amendment VI) calls for a speedy and impartial public trial for all convicted of a crime. Justice is rendered today and you do not have to wait to have justice meted out. Justice is quick, fair and impartial. Or at least, it is supposed to be. Today the wheels of justice seem to grind much more slowly than envisioned by our American forefathers. Few of us would say that most trials are speedy, never mind impartial. Perhaps if the definition of a “speedy” trial had been defined we might be better able to judge the efficacy of our present US court system. What is speedy to some of us might be slow to others. No doubt we all want justice today for ourselves. Why then does it appear that few citizens are clamoring for trials to be made speedier? Is the right to a speedy trial no longer important? Are we more willing to tolerate delays in all aspects of our lives? Have we extended this to the court system so that we no longer feel that a speedy trial is important?

Maybe we should just rewrite the Bill of Rights to make the amendment more accurate. Perhaps it should read: “You are entitled to a trial, which with lawyers and court delays might take several years before it comes to court. If you can afford a better lawyer, you will have a better chance of winning your case.”

What would you think of this change? Do you think trials should be speedy? Do you think it is important to have a speedy, fair and impartial justice system? Do you think most are? How would you feel if you were in the court system? Would you be a satisfied customer?

Naptime has always been one of my favorite moments. I love taking naps. Many people do not. There is also a stereotype in which “older” people need naps but younger ones do not need them. I have been taking naps all of my life. Ever since I can remember, I love taking naps in the afternoon. I can nap for only thirty minutes and feel so wonderful after. I remember interviewing for a job a few years ago and the “much” younger woman behind the desk kept mentioning to me that “we really need to do things fast around here.” I felt like telling her that I could not really do things that fast since I would have to nap each day right after lunch.

Is the world divided into napers and non-napers? In some parts of the world, an afternoon nap or siesta time is traditional. In other countries, the work ethic does not permit naps. Naps probably started going out the door with the Industrial Revolution; another casualty of our hectic life in the so called “modern” or civilized world. I have seen some recent articles talking about how healthy it is to take naps. Maybe it is time to start a trend or fad. Here is one way I think we could do it. Nap Parties!

We have alls sorts of parties but has anyone ever invited you over to a “nap party?” When you were a child, you may have gone to a slumber party but only if you were a girl. Men were always too macho for that kind of an activity. That was just for “silly” girls. You might argue that nap parties would not work because as our economies develop and the world gets more competitive, we don’t have time for such foolishness. We need to be more productive and get things done.

What would business and industry be like if everyone took naps in the middle of the afternoon? How could we compete on a world scale if everyone took a nap each day? Interesting, how we have become more concerned with competing and less concerned with stress and our personal health. Maybe we would all live longer and have a lot less stress if we took more naps. Perhaps like the turtle versus the hare, a little nap might help us to win the longer races.

When was the last time you took a nap? What was it like? Do you have enough naps in your life? How could you get more naps in your life? What if you took a nap today? What would others think about it?

Are you keeping time? Can the world be divided into time keepers and time ignorers? Do those folks who do not wear time pieces simply ignore time, or do they keep time in their own way? I once heard someone say that “you cannot trust a person who does not wear a watch.” Today, many people do not wear a watch. Cell phones, laptops, GPS systems and PDA’s all keep perfectly accurate time. However, are the same folks who would wear a watch actually using these devices? Are do those folks who could not care less about the time, still ignoring it despite the new array of timekeeping devices?

Time keepers tend to be worriers and somewhat obsessive. However, they also feel responsible and compelled to live up to their temporal commitments. A time keeper is dedicated to the “keeping” of good time. This means being on time, doing things in a timely manner, being alert to the passing of time and using time wisely. As with all of life, there is a time to keep time and a time to ignore it.

Time ignorers use time but are not obsessed with keeping track of time. They also keep their commitments but are less obsessed with the ritual aspects of time keeping and more concerned with the relational. It is not being on time that is important to them so much as being with time. Time ignorers live in the present and may be more concerned with the quality of the time they use. Time keeping devices cannot measure the quality of the time we use only the coming and going of time. The real secret of time may lie in finding a balance between keeping time and ignoring time.

Are you a time keeper or a time ignorer? Do the above descriptions fit you at all? Would you say that sometimes you choose to ignore time and sometimes not ignore it? Have you found the right balance between keeping time and ignoring it? If not, what do you have to do to find a better balance in your life?

I’m in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life’s no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why (Alabama)

How true this song rings for so many of us. We are all in a hurry and we don’t know why. Where are we going? Why must we be in a hurry to get “nowhere” so fast? How frustrating life can seem when everyone wants everything fast. We have fast food restaurants, fast bank drive-ins, ATM’s, fast lanes, one hour prescriptions glasses, express lanes in the grocery stores, fast check-ins and fast checkouts at hotels and fast registrations for just about everything you can name. Amazon has instituted one-click shopping which has raised the bar even higher for fast service transactions.

As we speed life up more and more, we become less and less patient with waiting or spending even a second of “wasted” time. We take our frustrations out in road rage or an excess of pills to pacify our anxiety and tensions. We increasingly see the negative effects of rushing and multi-tasking. We have no time to spend thinking about whether or not we are rushing since we are so busy rushing we have no time to think. The cycle gets more vicious each day. We have completely relegated that old admonition “haste makes waste” to the dustbins of history.

When do you have time to stop or to do nothing or even to “waste” a minute? As you go through your activities today, see if you can be a little more patient. See if you can slow down a teeny bit. Use those opportunities when you are frustrated or feeling rushed to notice the flow in your life. Each moment of haste or impatience is an opportunity to slow the rush down. How many chances can you take today to slow the rush down? How many will you succeed at? Give your heart a break today! Give others a break! One of these breaks may just save your life.

Spending time! What an interesting concept. We say: “I would really like to spend some time with you or I would really like to be able to spend some time on that.” What does it mean to spend time? Is time like money? If time is like money, then do I only have so much to spend? What if I am rich, do I have more time to spend than a poor person. Can you be rich in time and poor in money? Well, regardless of how much money you or I have, each day we wake up with 24 hours of time in a day. Whether you are rich or poor, the length of the day is the same for each of us.

In the short term, money is always limited, but taking a long term view it can always grow or diminish. Time does not grow though. Our time runs down as each second, each minute, each hour, each day, each week, each month and each year brings us one step closer to finality. All the money in the world will not stop this inevitability. We all have a date with death at some point in our lives. Sooner for some and later for others, but it is inevitable for all. Unlike money in a bank though, each day brings me 24 fresh new hours to live. However, while I have 24 new hours to live each day, I will never see the same moments again in my life that I spent yesterday.

Thus, it is prudent to ask if you are spending your time wisely or foolishly. How did you spend your time yesterday? Was it a worthwhile purchase from your time bank or was it something very mediocre? Did you get your time’s worth? How will you spend your time today? Are you thrifty or profligate with time? Will you spend your time today buying what you need to live a happy and fulfilling life?

Famous eulogies! Some eulogies are so memorable that they are forever etched into our minds and into history. Others will quickly be forgotten. Yes, we did talk about eulogies before. In fact, I asked you to write your own eulogy. Have you done it yet? Will your eulogy become famous? Go to Google and type in “eulogy” and you will find dozens of sites with links to famous eulogies.

Perhaps the most famous “funeral” oration of all time was not given at a funeral. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream Speech” was about what Dr. King wanted said at his funeral. He had a premonition of his own death and drafted this speech as a sort of pre-eulogy that he delivered himself. It is surely one of the most moving and memorable speeches of all time. Another famous eulogy, perhaps never given but immortalized by Shakespeare was the speech by Marc Antony after the murder of Julius Caesar. I can still hear ringing in my ears the words: “I come not to praise Caesar but to bury him.” Of course, this was a very ironic eulogy since Antony did not mean what he said and he turned the oration into a propaganda forum to inspire a revolt against Caesar’s murderers.

Most of us have probably never thought about our eulogies becoming famous, but who knows what can happen after we die. The point of creating your eulogy is not about becoming famous, it is about reflecting on the life you want to live. Someone said that dreams become goals when you put a date on them. Well, hopes and wishes can become real to but only when you put them out as intentions and desires. If you want to be the person in your dreams you will have to form the intention to be that person. When someone else is giving your eulogy it will be too late.

If you still have not written your eulogy or even if you have written it, go back and look it over again. Think about these questions again: What do I really want said about me when I die? What do I want people to remember me for? What would I say about myself if I gave my own eulogy speech today? What is memorable about my life that I would like history to remember me for? Now make a schedule to write your eulogy. When you have written it, the question to ask is “Can I live up to this?” If not, how do you need to change your life and when will you start to make these changes?

“Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it” – G. Santayana. I first came across this quote on a tablet engraved at Dachau, a German concentration camp during WW II. The camp is now a war memorial for the millions of Jewish people and others murdered by the Nazis. Today, more than 50 years later and we still are fighting over the truth of the Holocaust. There are still those who say the Holocaust never happened. Worse, there are those who sport Nazi arm bands and wear Hitler tattoos. Many of us have no wish to forget the past but we want to remember it accurately. It is not heritage when there is hate involved. It should not be remembered with nostalgia by the perpetrators when others suffered, died and were ignominiously buried. Imagine if someone suddenly said that crucifixions were an important part of their heritage and they did not want to forget them!

What a desecration to the past efforts of millions of Americans and others who gave their lives to wipe this disease of fascism and hate off of the face of the earth! To parade around in jack boots and Heil Hitler salutes is an insult to humanity. How in heaven’s name has it blossomed again and why? Are we so ignorant of the past that we do not think it can happen again? Do we not read the paper and notice the increased violence against minorities and immigrants. Why is this true? Why are we forgetting the past and allowing this rotten blight to spread? Are we willing to trade our freedom for security?

What about the past do you need to remember? What have you chosen to forget? Are you confusing heritage with hate? Do you romanticize the past and forget the evil that was often done to others?