No time

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In our increasingly busy lives, we have less and less time to do the things we want to, or even need to do. Between work, family, friends, our household chores and social media, our days are more than filled. And when we keep trying to juggle all our balls in the air all the time, we run the risk of burning the candle on both ends…

It seems that oat some point we have to choose. We have to set our priorities, and divide our time such that what really needs to get done will get done, and that we create enough flexibility in our lives to be more relaxed about the rest.

Yet there seems to be another angle to our day-to-day lack of time.
Because not only do we seem to cram more activities into our day than time permits by not being clear on our priorities and our choices as to what is truly important in our lives and what is not; we also tend to spend quite a bit of time thinking about things that have happened in the past. Things we could have handled better; how we could have given a wittier response; even how things that may have happened to us long time ago are still influencing how we are (re)acting today.
And then there is the future. As we feel we have no time already, it is easy to start worrying about how we will fit in future endeavors. How we will schedule our calendars tomorrow, or next week; next month, in order to get everything done.

The reality is that we cannot change the past. We can learn from what has happened in the past; we can transform how past situations are affecting us. But that’s it! Spending any more time and energy on the past puts us in a position where we are living in the past.
What tomorrow will bring ~ or next week, next month ~ is still out there. We can make plans, but worrying about it puts us out into a future that hasn’t happened yet, and in some cases probably never will happen.

And all the time we spend pondering or perhaps even regretting the past, or worrying about the future, is time we do not have available to be present and productive right now.

It may well be that our efforts to be present in this very moment, to live life as we encounter it, can give us the greatest amount of ‘extra’ time. Time to do the things that need to be done today, as well as time to smell the roses and enjoy our lives to the fullest!
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