Where do you find time?

Where do I find time? Karen asks me to tell her when I find the answer. I guess many of you are also have the same question. We can look under rocks, in old storage chests, in our savings box, under our beds, in closets and I will bet we will not find time there. Like a little child playing a game, time is playing hide and seek and you are trying to find her. However, no matter how hard you look you cannot find time. Is time hiding, or have we just not saved enough to find? Time is a very elusive creature. We may find her when we don’t want her only to lose her when we really need her.

Harvest Time – By Kimberly Strothman

Orange, red, yellow, green. The colors gently falling,
billowing in the wind. The smell of dry leaves, barbeques, musty air
finding that time in our hearts for quiet contemplation
Harvest time is here.

What if the most important time to find is not outside but inside? Perhaps you may never find the time out there. The truth is that time out there is not ours to control. You can’t stop the world or even your clock. Time inside is a different story. Time inside is yours to control. Time for reflection, time for love, time for caring, time for compassion, time for thinking, all of these times lie inside us. Yet we spend most of our time looking outside. Who has ever found patience or compassion looking outside? We have limited time outside but unlimited time inside.

We spend so much time looking for time outside that we ignore the time we have inside. We have unlimited time in our hearts to care for ourselves and our loved ones. I think of the line that says “iron bars and stone walls do not a prison make.” What bars and stone walls do we construct around time? We fool ourselves into thinking that we live in a prison of time. If we realize that we can control how we look at time, we can find all the time in the world for what really matters. I may have to work from 9 to 5 to make a living but my mind and my feelings are not captured by the time clocks of the world. We create our own prisons for time.

What inside time, can you find today? Where can your mind go today to look for time that it has never gone before? What thoughts and feelings have you ignored? What if you let yourself think the unthinkable or feel the unfeelable? What could you do today that would be so worthwhile that at the end of the day, you would say “this is one of the best days of my life?”

How often have you heard "This won't take long?"

This won’t take long! How often has someone said that to you or you have said that to someone else? A few years ago, I bought my first gas grill. I had never owned one and Karen and I decided it was time. To save a few bucks, I ordered it through the Internet. When it came, it was in one huge box which I had a hard time moving into the garage by myself. I vaguely remember something about it only taking fifteen minutes to put together. Well, it took me 30 minutes just to lay all of the parts out. Three hours and forty five minutes later, I had finished putting my grill together. Except for putting the batteries in backwards, I was able to fire the thing right up and do my first outside grilling at the age of 60. I was thrilled except when I thought how long it took me to put it together. I was even angrier the next day when after going to Home Depot, I found the same grill. I could have purchased it there pre-assembled; with delivery, it would only have cost me 25 dollars more. Thus, my savings did not even come close to paying for my time, not to mention my aggravation.

We often underestimate the length of time it will take to do things. Sometimes we are misled by advertisements but often by our own misconceptions. The thought “this won’t take long” should be a red flag for most of us. On reflection, the phrase is seldom true. They say anything worthwhile takes time. We can do the worthless fast, but those things that are really meaningful and valuable will take more time.

What things and events do you most often underestimate? What jobs or tasks do you rush through? What work do you have to do today that you should allow more time for? What areas in your life should you spend more time on? It is a lot easier to be less frustrated and to do a better job when you can allow the right amount of time needed for the job and not worry about it “taking too long.”

What is the value of one minute of time?

Just one minute! One minute please! Right! We all know that when someone says “just one minute,” it will be more than one minute. Have you ever thought about a simple minute? What is one minute? Of course it is just sixty seconds. Not too much too ask of anyone it seems. But how many minutes do each of us have in our lives? If we live to an average age of say eighty, then we will each have 42,048,000 minutes in our lives. You could say that in respect to time, we all start out as millionaires and end up as paupers. For no one leaves this earth with even one minute left of time to spend.

I think we all spend our time perhaps more wastefully than we do our money. Imagine the moment when you will have only 60 minutes left to spend. How precious each of those minutes will be! We go through our days spending minutes like the proverbially drunken sailor. We yak on our cell phones, we create mindless diversions so the time will pass more quickly and we hardly ever really think of whether we are doing the important things in our lives or just wasting our minutes. We act like young children who think they will live forever. It never occurs to us that someday our bank of minutes will be near depletion and we will rue those minutes we simply threw away.

An old saying is that if you watch the pennies the dollars will take care of themselves. Well, if you watch the minutes, perhaps the hours and days will take care of themselves. How well do you respect your minutes? During each day, do you just hope the clock will move faster so you can do something else or do you cherish each moment? What is one way you can treasure your minutes more today? Can you spend just one minute today thinking about your joys and happiness and what it means to be alive? Can you reflect on how precious the last minute of your life will be or the last minute of a loved ones time with you?

Is your life filled with passion or with counting time?

I lost track of the time. Where did the time go? How often have you heard someone make this comment? Generally, it means we were so engrossed with what we were doing that we forgot we had another appointment or schedule. When we lose track of time, time no longer seems to exist. It is not moving fast or slow, it just does not seem to matter to us. I heard someone say recently that they did not wake up and say “gee, I have to go to work today.” Instead, they woke up and said “Wow, I get to go to work again today.” Can you imagine the difference between time for the first case and the second? Time in the first case is drudgery and time in the second is a joy.

When you do not enjoy what you are doing. Time matters the most to you. You check the clock. You wonder when the time will go by. You find ways to “break” up your time. The more “breaks” the better. When we enjoy or even love what we are doing, we forget the clock. We don’t worry about breaks or when will it be time to go home. Sean John’s says “life without passion is unforgiveable.” He lives this in his daily life. His message is important for all of us. How many of us find lives that are full of passion? Why not? Is such a life beyond our reaches or do we just fail to make the choice?

The more our world is dominated by time, by pressures to do things faster, to multi-task, or to live in the fast lane the less happy and more stressed we will be. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if time did not matter anymore and we could lose track of time on a permanent basis? What if our lives were so filled with passion that every second was one we could live with for eternity? What if passion replaced time in our lives? When was the last time you lost track of time? Can you hardly wait to go to work or do you count each workday between Sunday and Friday? Is your life filled with passion or wondering when the minute hand will move forward?

Is your time running out?

“Your time is running out” says the villain to the hero. How often have you heard this phase in the movies? Of course, we know that this is a lie. The villain’s declaration is just a cue for our heroine to spring into action. She will then surprise us with some type of unexpected near miraculous escape. Perhaps, she will fool the villain into talking long enough so she can manage her escape. This comment on time may be the most common phrase or at least one of the most common in all of theater. It is so melodramatic that authors can not refuse to use it.

However, what do you think you would do if your doctor said this to you? Perhaps at your next physical, you doctor tells you that “your time is running out.” Would you simply think of the metaphor of an hourglass with the sands of time running through it or would it strike a more essential chord of your being. I am going to guess the latter. You would want to know how much time you had left. You would want to know how you could escape this trap. If there were no way out, eventually you would start wondering how you should spend the rest of your remaining days. Suddenly time and its effective use would become the most important priority in your life. Many of us would drop the nonessentials and focus on only the truly important things in our lives.

Ironically, whether your doctor or a villain says it to you, it is a hundred percent true fact that time is running out for you each day. Do you know anyone who ever said “my time is running in?” Do you know anyone who knows the hour of their death? Maybe, you should think more about your real priorities each day before it is too late, before someone else tells you that your time is running out. Perhaps, you should be asking yourself today “What really does matter to me?”

Do you spend more time doing what matters or do you spend more time on the nonessentials? What would you change in your life if you were suddenly confronted with the fact that “Your time is running out?”

What does the idea of "Tempus Fugit" mean to you?

Tempus Fugit: The expression was first used in the verse Georgica written by Roman poet Virgil: Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, which means, "But it flees in the meantime: irretrievable time flees." (Wikipedia). Two thousand years have past and sadly, no one has yet learned to retrieve time. As one grows older, the law of supply and demand enforces an increased value for time. Time is to the elderly as money is to youth. Time is a precious and scare resource that one values and seeks and that becomes more important later in life than when you are young. Yet, where money can be retrieved, time cannot. I can lose a fortune but if I waste ten years of my life, I can never recover the spent time. Who would not want to find the Fountain of Youth?

Time flies and flies and flies and ever I wish I could just “stop” the clock. Stopping the clock is possible on game shows and in some sports. However, we do have those special moments when time seems to stand still. When we are truly engaged in something or someone, time may not seem to be present in our lives. Like a hummingbird, time can hover in one place but only for short sequences. Inevitably the clock starts to move again and we return to the world of time and money.

As you go through the day, try to reflect on the Latin phase “tempus fugit” and see how and when your time flies. There is a value in truly treasuring the moments of our lives. Sometimes we seem to be trying to make time fly faster than it does. Are you in a hurry to get home, to go on that date, to get some job or chore done? In such cases, we can’t stand to see time standing still. We want tomorrow to happen today. It does not matter then that time flies. Where will your time fly today? Where would you rather have it linger like the hummingbird? Do you take enough time in the day to just let it hover for awhile? What would your life be like if you had more hover time and less “tempus fugit?”

Are you running your company by a time clock?

Time clocks are synonymous with the industrial revolution. Prior to industrial work, people thought of time as more cyclical. Time clocks went hand in hand with factory or machine and assembly line work. The concept of a “Time clock” is an oxymoron. Aren’t all clocks, time clocks? The industrial revolution was a period when brawn became more valued over brains. It was more important to measure the amount of time that a person worked (and this was equated with productivity and quantity) then the quality or creativity of their work. The information age and knowledge age has reportedly ushered in a quantum change in how we view and value work. Today, creativity and innovation have become highly prized, at least in word if not in deed.

One hears today that quality, creativity and innovation are the cornerstones of success in the 21st century business world. Nevertheless, we still see managers who seem more concerned with the time clock as a measure of productivity than anything else. How long did you work today is often seen as more important than how much you accomplished or what new ideas and innovations you could come up with. We talk about allowing workers to telecommute, yet many managers express the view that: “how will I know what they are doing or if they are really working?” “Well, perhaps they will not get their job done and then you would know!” We may live in the knowledge age, but the industrial era mindset is still dominant in many workplaces.

It often takes a generation before minds catch up with new technology and paradigm shifts. We have 21st century needs and technology still driven by 20th century minds and concerns. Companies that cannot make the change are destined to go the way of the dinosaur. The same might be said for managers who cannot change their mindset.

What do you value in your workplace? Do you measure how much your employees contribute, including ideas and innovations or are you measuring how long they work and how many hours they put in? Do you have the power to change things? If so, when will you go from the 20th century to the 21st? When will you start treating your employees like knowledge workers rather than machines?

Are you getting older or better?

We often hear the comment from someone getting older that they are “Aging like fine wine.” Well, yes, wine does gets better with age, but sadly, the human body does not. My joints and muscles are no longer as flexible as they once were. My body does not recover as fast from aches and pains as it once did, and I no longer dream of playing football on the weekends or any rough contact sports for that matter. My body seems to be aging more like cheese. It is getting softer and moldier around the edges. It might still be edible but it is not as fresh as it once was. The good side of this issue is that my brain is more nimble and astute than ever. The body will inevitably deteriorate, (even with plastic surgery), but the brain does not necessarily age the same way. Studies have shown that IQ can remain the same throughout one’s life, if you keep “exercising” the brain by reading, studying and learning. Now of course, the body will stay in better shape as well if you keep up with some exercising. However, no amount of exercising is going to keep the body in the same shape as when we were 21 or younger.

Then we come to the soul and spirit. Here is where age can really excel over youth. Through experience and moral exercise, we can all become better then we were. We can continue to grow spiritually and morally throughout our entire lives. We can leave this earth as better people. We can give back to the world some of what we took from it. However, this also requires exercise. It requires exercise of both moral and spiritual values. It requires moral and spiritual discipline. You will not grow in either area if you do not take the time to practice skills that lead to moral and spiritual development. The virtues of faith, hope, charity and love must be practiced daily or they atrophy like an old moldy cheese.

What exercise do you get each day? Do you exercise morally and spiritually as well as physically and mentally? Which areas do you need to concentrate more on? Are you aging like a fine wine or like moldy cheese? What do you need to do to perk up your aging process?

How well are you balancing your time demands?

Balancing time is one of the biggest juggling acts facing most of us. Considering how well we do, we should all think of ourselves as “jugglers of time.” We schedule this meeting, then that meeting and still another meeting and in between meetings, we must do paperwork, find time for lunch, get some errands done, meet with our boss and then get more paperwork done. We return home and then must balance time for ourselves, our spouses, our children, our family, our friends and also more errands, housework and chores that demand time.

I sometimes think that someone could make a fortune starting a time service for people. I would show up at your house and do all the minor things that take up so much time and don’t really add value to your life. Of course, if you have money, you may already be paying people to do the housekeeping, the yard, the chores etc. You are then juggling a variety of services that help to “save” you time. Many of us cannot afford these services and must juggle lives, jobs, chores etc, ourselves. As society has become more modern, we seem to be juggling more and more. Perhaps this is because we are not run by “natural” clocks anymore and in a sense (unlike milking cows or farm chores), the time we have is really discretionary. This puts more power in our hands to manage time but also demands more of our balancing skills.

What do you need to balance today? Are you balancing the unimportant things and forgetting to include the really important things in your life? Is your present balancing bringing you happiness and satisfaction or is your balance out of kilter?

Are you wasting your time away?

Stop wasting my time! This is a comment that is frequently heard and seldom reflected on. What does it mean to waste someone’s time? Does the person know they are wasting your time? What was the person doing that “wasted” your time? Is it like wasting food or wasting money? When someone tells you something that you are not interested in, does it waste your time? In a country where the average person watches more than 25 hours a week of TV, it seems preposterous that anyone could dare use a phrase like “stop wasting my time.”

We spend four hours per week watching people hitting a ball, carrying a ball, throwing a ball and bouncing a ball in games that we call sports, but we do not consider this a “waste” of our time. If sports and TV are not time wasters, then what qualifies? What wastes your time? Is this time when you are not doing anything? Whose fault is that if you have nothing to do? If we were honest, we would admit that most of us waste our own time with silly meaningless activities designed to take our mind off living and perhaps really accomplishing something. We are each experts at ways to waste time. TV, gambling, casinos, watching sports, newspapers, endless meetings, etc. are only a smattering of the myriad ways we each waste our time each day.

Wasting time may be a very subjective term, since what I think is very wasteful, you might think is very useful. My ideas of what constitute a valuable use of time might fit your definition of “time wasters.” Nevertheless, we all have our own ideas of what time wasting means to us.

What if more of us started “wasting” our time on the activities that could really make a difference to the world? What would the world be like, if more of us took an interest in government, law and politics and less in TV, gambling, sports and other activities? What if we spent more time in charitable activities, loving others, finding ways to bring peace to the world, building bridges and creating friendships with those in need? What if we spent 25 hours a week on these activities instead of watching TV? Could you spend one hour less on TV this week and one hour more on peace? Where would you start? When will you start? Why not today?

What if you had only one year left to live?

You have one year to live! What if your doctor told you today that you had only one year to live? It’s not a pleasant thing to think about, but it might be true right now. Who among us can know the day of our death? We all know people who were healthy and active and died unexpectedly. We also know people who smoked, drank and never exercised and died rather more expectedly. Nevertheless, none of us know the exact day we will die. My sister was a smoker and like my father she was diagnosed with cancer. They predicted she would die within six months and she lived nearly four years longer. Neither my father nor sister had a very active or healthy life. Neither of them lived to the expected average age. My father was sixty when he died and my sister was fifty four. They both had ample warning to get their lives in order but both did little or nothing about it.

Perhaps too many of us live with no thought of dying because we “assume” we have a great deal more time to live. Maybe we are young and think we will live forever or maybe we regularly work out and think this will prolong our life. By assuming we will live longer, we put up with a lot of stuff that we would be better off dealing with. We stay in dead in jobs, we ignore things we really want to do, or we put off living until we are retired.

Are you waiting to live your life? If you died today, would you have any regrets? If you thought about the possibility that this proposition was true (that you only had one year to live), would you do anything different? Do you think you would try to get your life in better order? What do you need to do to make this next year the best year of your life?

Do you want to know what really matters in your life?

What matters most in your life? Do you want to find out? There is a simple way to do this. Take out your checkbook and your daily scheduler. You must be entirely honest with this exercise. Looking at both your checkbook and your calendar for the past week or month, where are you spending your time and your money. Make a list of the areas that you spent your most time on and most money on. Did you spend 100 dollars on a charity but 300 on eating out? Did you spend 24 hours in the past month watching TV and four exercising? If so, then your priorities would suggest that dining is more important than charities and that watching TV is more important than exercising. Your time and money does not lie. It says what really matters in your life. The doing is more convincing then the saying.

What do you say really matters in your life? What do you like to think really matters most in your life? If you are consistent with your values, then where you spend your time and money today will match your values and priorities. This is the true indicator of what is important to you and what you really value. The rest is wishes and dreams. Deny it if you want to, but actions speak much louder than words and we will all be remembered by what we do more than by what we say. This is a very difficult fact for many of us to reconcile. We all have many ideals that we espouse but unfortunately we don’t take the time or effort to live up to them.

Where are you spending your time today? What do you really value? Do they match? If not, what do you need to change in your life to bring it more into alignment? Are you willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring your values into alignment with your behaviors?

What role does choice play in your life? Can you change your destiny?

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing." (Macbeth, V, v, 19, Shakespeare)

The above passage is perhaps the most famous speech in literature, spoken by Macbeth after learning of his wife’s suicide. Why does this macabre and depressing analysis of life hold so much meaning for us? Is it because, like Macbeth, we sometimes feel a powerlessness and futility to life? What is our “recorded time?” Is this the time we are destined to live? Do you believe the time and date of your death is fixed?

I think it might be inevitable to believe that we are fixed by fate and that life is controlled by forces and events beyond our power to influence. Nevertheless, we see countless examples of people who have changed the world for the better by denying the concept of predestination and fate. Macbeth brought his own destiny upon him by his greed and avarice. We go through life making choices and these choices decide what we will become. We are more than candles and poor players upon a stage. We may not quite be Nietzsche's Superman, but we are a great deal more than fools and idiots. We are not all powerful but neither are we powerless.

I am always reminded of the serenity prayer: Please help me to know the difference between those things I can change and those things I cannot. This is one example of pure wisdom. We can change some things and we cannot change others. What will you become if you do not try? What can you change today in your life? What needs to be changed that you have felt powerless to change? What destiny are you following that is painful? Who can you find that could help you change? There is always someone out there who can and will help you? Do you need to find that person today?

Should old acquaintances be forgotten?

Westminster chimes are a harmonic symbol of time for some people. Karen (my spouse) who is very musical pointed out to me that sounds often represent time for us. The ticking of a clock, the coo coo bird in an old fashioned grandfathers clock or the bells chiming at noon in many towns are all tuneful measures of the role that time plays in our lives.

There are many songs that sing about time or make reference to time; perhaps the most famous being Auld Lang Syne. Robert Burns (the famous Scottish Poet) is known as the restorer of this song via his poetry which was based on perhaps an earlier version that was lost or wherein only a few parts remained. This song is known throughout the world and popularly associated with the end of the old year and the bringing in of the New Year. The three words can be translated as “old long ago, or old long since.” It is about old friends and old times that were forgotten and about the joy of looking forward to new times and new memories.

The verse “should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind” is a question we never answer during our New Years celebration, but it really does deserve an answer. When do we forget old friends and move on? When do we try to rekindle a past friendship? Who gets to be forgotten and who should we remembered? Are all old friends worth keeping? When do we need to forget some and move on? How do we decide whom to forget and never bring to mind? I still wrestle with this problem and I wonder how you decide. I would love to hear your thoughts on old friends and acquaintances.

This year when you sing this song, sing all the verses and in the traditional circle perhaps share who you remember and who you will forget. It will be quite an interesting New Year.

What are the quantum changes in your life?

Quantum changes represent breaks in the continuity of time. Linear times measures changes in specific fixed intervals. Quantum change happens when something “jumps”, i.e., it defies our normally ordered thinking about time. Sometimes, these special events are called discontinuities because they represent a break in the normal chain of events. Our lives in this country underwent a quantum change after 911. While we can argue about whether or not the bombings could have been prevented, there is little or no argument that they completely disrupted our life patterns not only in the US, but in other parts of the world. The changes 911 caused in the US had ripple patterns that have affected the entire history of many other nations and cultures.

Quantum changes seem to be unpredictable and can have enormous impacts on our lives. Getting married or divorced might be a quantum change for some people. Death though predictable as to the eventuality is not predictable as to the time and manner. Death can cause quantum changes in the lives of many people connected in some way to the loved one. Even distant connections can be impacted by the death of someone we know or hear about. Witness, how many people were affected by the death of Princess Diana. How will your death affect others? Who will be most affected? What long-term changes will your death have on the lives of others in the world? Remember the John Donne poem:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

What will become of you?

Chronos in Greek mythology was the god of Time or the god of the ages. When something is arranged “chronologically”, it means it is ordered in time, usually from oldest to most recent. I once heard someone say, it is a shame we are not born backwards. If we were, as we grew older and wiser, physically we would grow younger and healthier. This is an interesting idea but not likely to happen soon. We read about a mythical fountain of youth or some magic that will unlock the aging process and we will never grow old. Actually, there are serious researchers looking to find a cure for aging who believe that ageing could be cured as we cure any other disease. Imagine taking a pill or a shot to cure “old” age.

I am not going to hold my breath for any of these aging fixes. Of course, I may just have my body frozen cryogenically so that I can be revived at some time in the future when our health systems have cured whatever disease I die from, including old age . Or I may just be cremated and have my ashes scattered to the four winds so I can become part of the universe again.

What will become of you when you die? Will you be buried, frozen, cremated or stuffed? My wife refuses to have me stuffed, which I thought was a good way to keep me around and in memory. How do you want your memory retained by others? Does it matter to you?

Is time a prison for you?

Time is a prison. My friend Bruce says “We live either projecting into the past or the future and we seldom reside in the eternal now. The present moment is eternal and timeless. Eternity is not time forever, but rather timelessness.” Thus, our thinking about time traps us into living in some other present but not in our current reality. Time becomes a prison from which escape is futile. We cannot escape our past, our present or our future. We live only in the moment and there is no escape from that. There have been numerous time travel stories wherein the hero/heroine is about to have some disaster befall them and suddenly time travel kicks in and they are whisked from one time period to another time. But this ability to escape our destiny by being whisked from one time period to another is still a fantasy.

Time is a prison in other ways as well. Some of us are trapped in an image of ourselves that may have changed or evolved but we cannot recognize this fact. Some of us may be trapped in memories of things long gone. Some of these memories may be accurate but some may be pure myth. It is amazing how events can evolve with the passing of time. Our memories of reality may bear very little resemblance to what really happened. Some of us may be trapped in the future. We dream of things to come or wish we were someone else. Dreams can be prisons if we do not take the energy and risk to make them become reality.

The only reality is the present moment and what you are doing this second. You cannot be stuck in the present since the present only exists for a moment. As soon as you think about the present, it is over. Your dreams and regrets have or will have become fantasies and myths. If time is a prison, is there any escape? Some of us may try our entire lives to escape from time. The prison of time exists only in your mind. Change your thoughts and you can leave this prison anytime you want to. What about your life do you want to change? What keeps you in the past? What do you have to do to accomplish your dreams of the future? Are you living in the present?

What really brings happiness to our lives?

It is a time of happiness. After thinking about times of sorrow, it seems right that we should reflect on the times of happiness in our lives. It is easy to forget the times of happiness when we are feeling pain or sorrow. As in the sorrows in our life, most of the things that bring us the greatest happiness have to do with people. Money, possessions, material goods and things never bring true happiness.

Karen and I have gone on many trips over the years to other countries. We have been to over 30 countries and almost all of the US and Canada. On several of these trips (but not all) we have been fortunate to make friends with people. Sometimes, it has been with local people we met accidently and other times it was with people we stayed with or did some business with on our trip. Without a doubt, the trips where we met people have been our most fun, memorable and happiest trips. Sartre is reputed to have written that: “Hell is other people.” Perhaps this is true at times but it is even truer that “Happiness is other people.” People bring us the joy and pleasure in our lives. People create the warmth and empathy that validate our existence and our undertakings. Things and objects do not validate or create warmth or support. When you are down or feeling depressed, you cannot talk to your car or boat or house. When you want to feel recognized for something you have accomplished, your things will not provide such recognition.

Whether it is your family, your children, your spouse or your friends, there is hardly a day that goes by when you are not thinking about them, playing with them or working with them in some way. All of these interactions are what life is really about. It is not about richness in things, it is about richness in people. The time that we spend with people brings happiness and joy to our lives. True, people can disappoint, hurt and disrespect you, but eventually you move on and look for new relationships or you try to rebuild and make your old relationships better. The time that you spend building relationships with people will be rewarded many times over. Would we do this if people truly were hell?

Think about all the happiness in your life today. Think about your past happiness. Who has helped to bring joy to your life? What relationships do you need to spend more time on? What relationships need to be changed? Spending time on relationships will be the most valuable time you can ever spend.

How do you deal with sorrow?

Have you ever been told “It is a time of sorrow?” There are many times of sorrow for each of us in our lives. As much as we may try to escape these sorrowful times, they are inescapable. From birth to death, our lives are punctuated by times of sorrow. Fortunately, our sorrows are interspersed with happiness. Each of handle sorrow in different ways, but we all share the pain, grief and suffering that goes with it.

Most sorrow comes from loss, loss of people we love or care about. While we might have sorrow over things, it is never as deep or painful as sorrow over people or even pets that we loved. The loss of a loved one seems to leave a deep hole that never quite fills. We continue to think about them long after they have gone. Little things bring back the memories and times we shared. Sometimes, we think happily but wistfully about what might have been or what we should have done or said.

Sometimes the sorrow is deep and sometimes not so deep, but always it will be lingering. Remember the song, “I am a man of constant sorrow.” I think that song resonated with many of us because life sometimes seems overwhelmed by sorrows. As we grow older, we face more and more of these sorrows. We know that it is inevitable that our friends, pets, relatives and loved ones will pass away. We know that we too shall pass. However, it isn’t our coming death that is most sorrowful for us. In fact, of all the people whom we know will die in our lives; our own death will probably be the easiest. Our spouses or parents will most likely be the hardest. I joke with Karen that I want to go first, but we both know it is no joke. I am being selfish. I don’t want to deal with the sorrow. The number of spouses that die very shortly after their loved ones seems beyond mere coincidence. It is hard to continue life without someone who loves you or someone whom you have spent most of your life with. It may be easier to fact death than to face sorrow.

How do you deal with sorrow? What sorrows linger in your life? Do you honor or ignore your feelings of pain and grief? Do you accept the sorrow that some days bring or do you try to ignore and shut them it out?

Was Solomon right?

“There is a time for sowing and a time for reaping, a time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.” – (Solomon, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). This psalm from Solomon is perhaps the greatest quote on time ever. It is undeniably recognized the world over for its profound wisdom. It reflects a world where everything has a place and a purpose and the role of time is an overarching foundation for the purpose of life. Today we weep for a lost friend or spouse, tomorrow we rejoice over a marriage or birth. Today we fight a war for justice and tomorrow we negotiate for peace.

We think we control time. We believe that we control life and even our own destinies. The reality is that we have control over some things and some (perhaps the vast majority) we do not. Solomon’s wisdom counsels us to accept the ups and downs of life. It speaks to life as a flow wherein everything has its place. It counsels us to develop our own wisdom as we progress through life and face its inevitable joys and sorrows. Do not be saddened by the burdens of life, for tomorrow is always a new day and it will bring new times and new opportunities. You have as much to be optimistic over as you do pessimistic. Optimistic people are happier and live longer.

We may not always be able to control time but we can always choose how we want to spend our time. We choose our attitudes and we chose the meaning of time to us at any given moment. I can decide to do what I think is important today or I can spend my day in trivial pursuits. I can work today to make the world a better place or I can bemoan the lack of good TV programs and its excessive commercialism. Some days I will be successful and others I will not be in controlling my time. Perhaps today is a time for failure and tomorrow will be a new opportunity.

What is your time for today? Life is often a series of cycles, do you live and accept your cycles or do you try to force your time according to some schedule? Do you accept the ups and downs of life? What downs are the most difficult for you to accept?

Do you have too much STUFF?

Collecting stuff is a pastime for many of us. Actually, it might even be an obsession for some of us. We shop till we drop. We shop on weekends, we shop on vacations and we shop on holidays. In fact, shopping has become a holiday of sorts. We shop and shop and shop. The result is that we collect so much stuff that we now routinely have garage sales and flea markets just to get rid of the stuff so we have more room to collect more stuff. I have noticed that many of my friends (now facing retirement) are trying desperately to “de-clutter” by getting rid of stuff. Amazon is full of books touting how to organize your stuff, while E-Bay is full of stuff that people are trying to get rid of (at a profit of course). We may be moving from an upsizing home economy to a downsizing home economy.

When we are young, we want more and more stuff. Then, either because of age or space, we finally get to the point where we are inundated with too much stuff. Stuff begins to rule our lives. The amassing of so much stuff creates a problem. Just like companies that have too much inventory, many of us have too much stuff. We spend time storing it, insuring it, moving it, maintaining it and finally trying to dispose of it. You cannot even take old computers to the landfills any more without paying a fee. It would be nice to think that all of our old stuff could be recycled and that it would not end up as simply polluting the environment. Alas, I doubt this is yet happening on a large enough scale.

Why do we collect all of this stuff to begin with? Are we amassing some treasure? If you think collecting stuff is profitable, think again. Most of us would have been better off putting our money in a retirement fund or the stock market. Stuff usually sells for pennies on the dollar if you can sell it at all. Do we simply collect stuff to have the most toys or to keep up with the neighbors? In a designer society, is stuff the ultimate status of success?

Amassing stuff becomes a habit. It can actually become addictive. My wife and I still look at stuff and want some of it. We are drawn towards it like moths towards a flame. Antiques, collectibles, nick knacks, art, motorcycles, toys, games. You name it, we want more of it. Fortunately, we both realize that 1) We don’t need it and 2) We have no place to put it. Our attitude towards stuff has changed as we have grown older. Why did we collect so much stuff in the first place? Why amass so much stuff that we don’t need and has little or no value to anyone else? We laugh at packrats as they attempt to collect stuff for their winter nests. In reality, we humans are the greatest packrats of all time.

How much stuff do you have that you don’t want or need? How much of your life and time is dedicated to collecting, protecting, maintaining and disposing of the stuff you have collected? What if you had less stuff and more time? Would you be happier? Stuff is the enemy of time. Can you set up a frugal rule or a rule to de-clutter? It will make your life simpler and more satisfying in the long run. Stuff can never replace time and people.

What do antiques have to do with our past?

Antiques hold a special allure for some people that I could never understand. Why would anyone want to buy someone’s old junk? Ancient items that people often bought out of necessity. Go to an antique store and it is full of things that our parents and grandparents gladly would have thrown out if they could have afforded anything better. Nevertheless, the growth of EBay and the thousands of antique stores that surround us are testimony to the allure of old items. And it is not just kitchen and household items.

Just look at the number of classic car shows that occur each weekend during the summer. Cars that never ran well, cars that broke down frequently, cars that had the gaudiest styles imaginable will all be lined up along city blocks. Throngs of admirers will saunter among the cars while the proud owners will sit in lawn chairs watching the people muse over their cars. How many times will they hear “I had one just like that when I was growing up?” Of course, most of these “antiques” are in much better shape now then when the aging baby boomer owned it. Newer engines along with updated electronics have probably made them much more reliable than when they were built.

As the baby boomer generation grows older, so does its fascination with nostalgia and all things old. Antiques are simply one way of reconnecting with the past and of fulfilling dreams that we missed in the years gone by. Nostalgia is defined as “a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time (dictionary.com).” Old objects are valuable because they connect us to what we remember as either an earlier or simpler or happier time. Time has a way of erasing the bad (perhaps more realistic memories) and replacing them with a dream of what our past should have been like.

Do you dream of living in the past? Do you ever get sentimental over “bygone” days? Have you ever bought an antique? What is your favorite antique? Why? Have you ever wondered what meaning it had for you? What in your past would you like to bring forward into your future? What would stop this from happening if you wanted it to? It is very interesting that despite our frenzy with progress and new development, a certain part of each of us will always be “stuck” in the past.

What rules govern how you feel about time?

I love a rainy day. I don’t need to justify that “April showers bring May flowers.” While many people moan and groan about rainy cold drizzly days, I actually revel in them. Something in me feels peace and tranquility on a rainy day. For years, I simply accepted that I enjoy the “dreary” days that put most people off. My friends and spouse think me crazy because I will greet the rainy days of spring and fall with the same alacrity that they greet the sunny warm days of summer. Something in my nature loves the way that time moves on a damp rainy day. Whether it is simply drizzling or a full blown thunderstorm, there is something on those days that my soul resonates with.

After years of feeling out of sync with other people, I decided to try and figure our why I feel such affinity for a rainy day. The explanation I came up with had to do with my father’s rules about how I could spend my time. On “nice”days, I was supposed to go outside and play. On “bad” days, I could stay inside and do whatever I wanted to or nothing at all. I could hear my father saying to me “get your butt outside, it’s too nice to stay inside.” I found this insight rewarding since I could now understand a childhood rule that governed how I spent my time and indirectly what I could do and not do. Rainy days were “bad” days, so I got to spend my time doing what I wanted to do. Nice days (sunny and warm) I had to go out and do chores and go out and “be busy.” On rainy days I could curl up inside and read a good book and not have to do anything or go anywhere. Time and rain were intimately related. I became a lover of rain because it meant freedom and all the time to spend as I wanted to spend it.

I am now free to break this rule whenever I want to. Insight conveys power. Nevertheless, I still love rainy days, but every so often, I choose to do nothing at all on a nice SUNNY day. I chose to reverse my father’s rule. Understanding our hidden rules about time can be a liberating experience. Do you know what your hidden rules are about time? What messages do you tell yourself about how, when and where you can spend your time? Where did you get these messages? What messages that you received have kept you from doing things you would like to do? Are you free to break your rules now when you want to? What would help free you from rules that don’t add any value or meaning to your life?