“Life gives you plenty of time to do whatever you want to do if you stay in the present moment.” Deepak Chopra
This past week I was focused on the concept of “time”. It just seemed to be a recurring theme. When the week began, I was considering my topic to ponder over the week. I do this each week, where I set out watching for something based on a topic about which I might write a few words of ponderance for you, the reader.
I found this quote by Deepak Chopra and it spoke to me. What does it mean to have plenty of time? Why is it we sometimes feel that time is short, or it stretches or simply gets away from us? This quote kept me in the present all week.
Leading into the weekend, I discovered it was the weekend where we would “spring forward”. I realized that not only do I spring forward, I also fall back more than just spring and fall. It amazes me that on Saturday night between the time I go to bed and when I awake, I somehow lose one hour of time.
At least that is what the general correspondence and announcements want us to believe; that somehow, we have “lost” an hour! Where could I have lost that?! In the sheets? Under the bed? Did it get out the window? Is it in my pocket of my favourite jeans? Or in the car? If I have lost it then I had better keep looking until I find it.
I did not look for it. I did not care. It does not feel lost it is simply a shift of our clock from one number to another. I have a clock on the stove and my phone, and these are the two timekeepers in my life. That and my Garmin. The wrist apparatus that tracks my fitness and kilometres I cover. The phone and the Garmin will change automatically based on satellites in the sky circling our planet and while I was making coffee, I changed the numbers on the stove.
Just like that, in the blink of an eye, the flutter of a butterfly’s wing, an hour dissolved into thin air. What happened to it? All I did was change the numbers on the clock. I felt no different in that moment when the stove went from saying it was 7:32 to saying it was 8:33. I did not transform nor did I alter. If I had lived that hour, so much could have happened.
Does that mean what was scheduled to happen in that hour, now, will not happen? I am certain there are split seconds in time that people would love to erase, let alone a whole hour of time. If I had lived that hour, I would be 60 minutes older, hungrier, and one hour closer to Monday morning and 3,600 seconds closer to being the ashes in an urn. But I didn’t live that hour, it just was erased! Or was it? Why do we express so much energy around the changing of a clock?
This past week I was corresponding with a beautiful woman who reads my column and always sends me a note and a comment! She worked in emergency services for so many years I won’t guess as to how many. Ask her about the value of 3,600 seconds.
I also zoomed with another reader who is closer to 90 years than 80 years. Ask her about the value of 60 minutes more with her husband who died. I hiked with a woman in her 70s who set a pace solid enough it kept my heart rate in zone 3 and loved how she led the way. Ask her about one more hour with her beloved husband who died not so long ago.
I hiked later that day with others. A man who was born the year my parents were married (1941) setting the hiking pace and telling me of the river we were looking at. Ask him after 80 years whether an hour is counted for its own sake? I joyfully celebrated the 70th birthday of my brother which now means all my siblings are over 70 and I am not far behind! Then I spent time with all my clients in LTC, aging adults, wondering the purpose of time and why their time is not up?
Where does the hour go when we spring forward and what is gained by the hour when we fall back? I will tell you where I think it goes – no where at all! No where at all because time is a concept and how we view it is how it is valued. If time is your enemy and creates fear then the clock will mean everything whereas if you are present to time it will become your friend.
All the clock does is tell you what time it is NOT! The clock tells you when you are late, when you are early, or the clock may tell you when time is running out. The clock can be Alex, an albatross around your neck, and a taskmaster that sets a pace you can no longer keep up with. When we look at time as being abundant and free, the clock holds nothing over us; it can change all it wants.
Deepak says, “life gives you plenty of time to do whatever you want to do …” It’s up to you how you spend time. When we watch nature and witness time in synchronicity, time takes on a whole new meaning.
Can you rush the burst of the leaves on the trees? Can you push the sun to rise sooner, or have it set later? Can you stop the tides of the ocean? Can you wake up a bear? Can you blossom a rose? Watch a child play and witness a tiny human who has no time encumbrances until the adults in their lives tell them what time it is. Time for dinner, time to go to bed, time for mommy to get to work, time for daddy to drop you at day care, time for you to fit into the clocks of the adults in your life.
So now you have jumped forward an hour that will light the evening a little later, what are you going to do with this change in your life? How will you spend your time? Same ol’ Same ol’? Or is it TIME for a change?
Change your own clock to whatever it is you want to have time for. You are in charge of your own time and if you think you are not, have a conversation with someone over 70 and learn from them how to befriend time before you are looking back on more years than there are years ahead of you. The TIME is now!
Cynthia Breadner is a grief specialist and bereavement counsellor, a soul care worker and offers specialized care in Applied Metapsychology with special attention to trauma resolution. She volunteers at hospice, works as a LTC chaplain and is a death doula, assisting with end-of-life care for client and family. She is the mother part of the #DanCynAdventures duo and practices fitness, health and wellness. She is available remotely by safe and secure video connections, if you have any questions contact her today! [email protected] breakingstibah.com
