Time marches on . . .
leaving footprints on our lives.
Hello friend,
Every morning, crimson feathers flash across my peripheral vision. The cardinal lands on the feeder outside my window. He knows there is food. He knows he is hungry. But, how does he know the time?
Does he care whether it is 8:00 or 8:30? Animals don’t watch the clock, except for the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as he hurries, exclaiming, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date!”
I find myself in the same predicament as I moan, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”
I wonder what would happen if humans let go of our obsession with time. When did we become such creatures of incessant productivity, never allowing one wasted moment, feeling the constant need to fill our day with tasks, waiting impatiently for the light to turn green, and living life as if the sands of time have no end?
I marched into my rabbit hole exploring the language of time that permeates and exacerbates our futile attempts to control and manipulate time.
We try to stop change hoping we can “turn back the hands of time” to the way things were. “Only time will tell” how our choices will affect a future we will never see,
Fix what is broken now because “a stitch in time saves nine.” Addressing obstacles “in the nick of time” will prevent worse consequences.
Can we really “beat the clock” when “time is of the essence?” I may think “time is on my side,” but Mark Twain reminds me, “There isn't time — so brief is life — for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account.”
Let’s not allow joy and hope to remain relegated to “once in a blue moon.”
Ephemeral—an interesting word that captures a tender, fleeting moment. They make up our days, the years, a life.
I don’t imagine clocks will ever cease to exist, nor will humans ever stop chasing time. In the meantime, I will hold tight to the wisdom of Maya Angelou.
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
We felt the shivers this week as a rare snowfall blanketed the south in white.
I started reading Maria Bowler’s new book, Making Time: A New Vision for Crafting a Life Beyond Productivity, and now time keeps coming up everywhere I look and listen.
Time earworms: Time in a Bottle, Back in Time, It’s Time.
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.”
— Sam Levenson
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
—Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
If you would like to read more from me, visit my website. I’ll be waiting for you there.
With gratitude,
Kathryn
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I read Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals--sobering but life affirming. A particularly good read for productivity addicts. Only drawback, the older you are when you adopt his approach, the less time you have left to enjoy it!