Monday, August 15, 2011

How to Make the Most of Time

We all ask this simple question: "what is time?" but we fail to find words or thoughts that would answer this simple worded yet such a difficult question.  Although last night I may have embarked on a spiritual journey which may have possibly hinted me closer to an answer.
As I lay in a meditative state my mind broke down many conscious barriers which gave me an inspirational shock. We always complain that we never have enough time, what we could do if only we had enough time on our hands.  The beauty of it is is that we DO have enough time, we just don't have the focus.  Many times at a task my mind wanders off kind of like an ADHD riddled kid where my plethora of thoughts cloud my mind drifting me away from my task at hand.  What I realized last night though was that whenever I shifted my focus away from a thought my mind went into idle mode and thats where we spend most of our time.  Letting our minds wander off in thoughts where its consumption or fuel is time.
Whenever we have to do something or see when its due we always run to check the time. Why? Is it because time gives us a reference point for when to approximately start? Maybe but why not instead of looking for the time we try to get a "feel" for when the time is right for us to focus our efforts on the task at hand.  I for one feel much more empowered when I ignore the fact that time will always run and instead "focus" on whatever I need to do which then will avoid all attention to time.  Its the age old dilemma that time always goes fast whenever we enjoy ourselves or have a good time, and whenever we're on that last hour of a hectic shift we can't wait to end, time goes way too slow.
To me time is truly of the essence! It works in conjuncture to what we project in the moment.  If we're bored it goes slow, if we're excited we'd feel as if there was not enough time.  The point here is to make the most of what you've got.  One of my favourite quotes is "life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain" which to me speaks volumes about time and to a greater extent our life in general.  Throughout our lives we bicker over small things, argue over the smallest affairs and right before we fall asleep we carry these lousy thoughts with us.  In regards to time, it will always run, its just a matter of whether or not your willing to enjoy and make every second of yours count towards a positive experience.  Be happy wherever you are, if you're in a boring lecture or meeting think about what makes this experience unique because many people throughout the World would love to know what boredom is like ;P.  There is always a way to turn a negative into a positive.  And really what makes something negative? Preconceived thoughts about the subject matter, conformed opinions about it or should be your intuition that's really the best judge of anything.  Nature is the most beautiful and the most common thing around us, maybe the folks in LA disagree but a simple river, mountain or field can affect us in the greatest of ways.  Right now I'm living with my family in San Jose, California for the summer and the closest natural thing we've got is the Mission Peak mountain.  It is truly beautiful, breathtaking to say the least and tons of people trek up the mountain above 2,500 ft to witness the beauty that awaits them at the top.  Getting close with nature really allows us to get closer to ourselves, as a matter of fact humans are a product of nature so why not embrace something that has affected so much you.  Living in a material world causes us to lose our connection with nature which causes us to dwell on useless worldly issues such as money and power. Ask an old man and he'll tell you how fast his life has passed and materialism never helps.  As my brain is flooded with many tangent thoughts I will try to stay "focused" :) and say that appreciation of everything, even time is a good way to make the most of it.  We always perceive time to be something negative, how it causes us to age and takes away our youth but if we take a closer look at it time is truly a beautiful thing.  It allows us to grow wise with age, it brings forth maturity from our adolescence and it brings us closer to the most memorable moments in life.  Last time I checked I do not have a memory of how happy I was to have a $100 in my wallet as opposed to trekking Mission Peak with my family and experiencing what time is...priceless

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