ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Time. Certainly not before we are around 30 years old. Till then most of us seem to behave fearlessly and possibly even recklessly. I don't know why but most of us behave as though we are Immortal. In fact, I doubt many of us pause much from the business of living our lives to do anything more than plan where we want to go next during our younger years.

For the child time often seems to pass too slowly, especially when they are told to wait for something. In fact, at first they don’t seem to understand the concept of time very well at all. The beleaguered parent can perhaps explain that some event will take place the next day but sometimes even this does not seem soon enough for the child.

We throw away a lot of time daydreaming when we are young. I always encourage this. I think we need a lot of this if we are to have creative people in the world and also because I believe not everything should be serious. In general, encouraging this is my way of hoping the world will ‘Lighten Up’; if not now, some time in the future.

Eventually however, we assume responsibility for our own actions, usually because we need to earn a living. Most of us also consider someone else’s interests, desires and well being when we form a relationship with each other. Earning a living and having a good relationship both consume a lot of our time, often many days, weeks, months and years.

Inevitably a time comes when we suddenly seem to feel that time is flying. We start reflecting that Tempus Fugit, Time Flies and realize we are almost 9 months into 2015 and 15 years into the new Millennium already. How can that be? Where did the time go? Why does the time seem to have passed so quickly?

Einstein created or discovered the Theory of Relativity. It was brilliant just because it described something that most of us either observed in some form or experienced.

Maybe you are at a place where you still think you have all the time in the world. Perhaps though you are reading this thinking, as I do, that time is flying by.

Like me, you might wish you could somehow slow time down long enough to catch a moment the way we can occasionally catch and look at a Snowflake. It would be so good to study and savour and appreciate each day like that.

Meanwhile, what we can actually do, is pay more attention to each day we are living and consciously take a moment here and there to reflect on its individual and singular uniqueness.

I am proposing that we consciously try and teach ourselves to appreciate what we have, here and now. I say this, because most of us are very aware that we don’t actually have ‘all the time in the world’ but that what we actually do have, is this time now.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

From time to time each of us feels unappreciated. We realize that we are feeling that those around us don’t recognize or even acknowledge all that we have done for them.

Here we are remembering everyone’s birthday, even our sister and brother in-laws, and then one day we forget one. Suddenly, the fact that we remembered a dozen others, and phoned to remind everyone else as well, is forgotten. It figures. Why are we surprised? We all know that no good deed goes unpunished.

Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, when we tell a close friend or family member that we feel unappreciated, they remind us that we should give freely and not give expecting to get something back. They tell us that we should be happy that we have the capacity and goodwill within us to give. The fact that they are right is even more annoying than the being ‘taken for granted’ we already felt.

Eventually we remember that we have many people in our lives who have been friends for a long time. As a matter of fact, many, even most people we know are usually happy to hear from us too. What we forget when we are disgruntled, is that there are many times when a bunch of people suddenly come through for us.

How could I already be forgetting that, only a little over a week ago I had a Birthday Party, went out for dinner and lunch and was given gifts, including one from a new friend? In fact, I still have several Birthday cards displayed which came from both family members and by mail from several friends, and several other celebrations to come in the near future.

When we are being reasonable, we finally consider that maybe somewhere in our lives, we are actually doing something right. Obviously time to nip the ‘pity party’ in the bud and get back to normal.

It is then that you are able to remember again why waiting an extra two hours for your 10 year old nephew’s rescheduled soccer games hardly matters at all. Besides the Sunburn gives your face much needed colour and Vitamin D. It is so little to give to someone who appreciates you as he does and actually knocked 20 years off of your age in his note on your Birthday Card, just over a week ago.

Besides, you have to be who you are. If you are a Giver, then you give because you want to, and maybe need to. There are worse things to be and the rewards begin, not with someone constantly thanking you, but in the capacity you have to be a better person by giving from the heart to those you care about.

FOREVER AND EVER

We all have important days each year where we pause and remember. For many of us New Year’s Day, our Birthday or name day, our Anniversary or some other special day is one we anticipate and remember.

August 24th is one such day for me. It comes a week after my Birthday on August 16th, but it is always a bittersweet Day of Remembrance of my Husband, his life and his passing away from living and our life together. 

So many happy memories accompany any thoughts about him, that even now on the 10th anniversary of his death, I can't help but smile at who he was and what his being in my life meant to me.

I have few, if any, regrets about our time together. I am happy that I could treat him to ‘double chocolate fudge killer cakes’ in the hope of fattening him up and about many, many other things we shared together.

I will never forget how our Christmas stockings became baskets or boxes of favourite treats and goodies. His delight in having a row of treats and candy that reminded him of his childhood was a wonder to behold on one Valentine’s Day.

What he meant to me as a person and who he was as a person, live on in my heart and that of all of those who knew him. Though I can’t say that he was ‘The World’s Greatest’ man of principles, Integrity, Honesty and Quality to other people; he was to me.

When someone becomes your everything, what they mean to you, while they are with you and when they no longer are physically here, remains ingrained in your heart and mind and soul. They live on always, even 10 years later, because they are in our hearts forever.

What we who have suffered this inconsolable loss as Widows and Widowers know most of all, is Gratitude, because they have enriched and changed our lives and everything about us forever.  

KEEP AN OPEN HEART

Over time most of us get to know ourselves fairly well. Experience usually teaches us that we will, sooner or later, move beyond whatever, obstacles we find in our paths.

Change is perhaps the only thing all of us agree that we can count on. I am encouraged by this. Realizing that each of us learns that just as the best experiences will pass, so also mercifully will those we consider the worst.

Nevertheless, there are times when we all feel quite discouraged. Most of us know, by now, that life is not all sunshine and light. I suspect that each and every one of us has felt that we’ve been knocked down or, at the very least experienced some setbacks.

I am convinced, that our continuing success and also our happiness may depend on how quickly we move beyond what we feel are obstacles in our paths. More importantly, I believe that almost everything depends on how we decide to approach, interpret and translate whatever new things we are experiencing.

In fact, I feel that we can, and actually must, turn almost anything life throws at us into a positive before we can build upon and incorporate it into our lives and move forward.

To give ourselves a chance to see life as a series of opportunities and experiences, rather than as a series of monumental challenges and obstacles we must struggle to overcome, I truly believe we need to keep both an open mind and open heart.  

In most things in life, I am convinced the key to moving forward and having a happy and successful life depends more than anything in how we interpret and act upon what we have coming into our lives, rather than whatever the actual experience itself might be.