It’s been a while since I posted a new blog entry, and for that I apologize. It seems time is always at a premium and since beginning my new novel, I’ve had to choose between that project and the blog. Since drafting a novel requires a significant amount of creative momentum to keep up over the long haul, I’ve generally allotted my free time to that effort, leaving little time—and even less creativity—for my usual rants, musings, and idiotic wonderings. That said, I’ll try to rectify that imbalance a bit here today.
You see, while out for a walk this morning, something dawned on me; there’s NEVER enough time to accomplish all that we desire in life. While this may seem a blinding flash of the obvious, never has it hit me so hard as it did this morning. I further realized that my weekly decisions slighting this blog over the past month and a half are representative of the types of decisions we all daily make at every stage of our lives.
What exactly do I mean? Well, I have a number of stories rattling around in my otherwise none-too-crowded skull. A great number, actually, all of which I’d like to someday get onto paper and make available to others for whatever enjoyment—or perhaps ridicule—they can find there. Yet thus far it takes me well over a year to complete a full novel and at that pace, doing the quick math, I’d have to live to an extraordinary old age in order to get it all done. And that’s assuming, of course, that I don’t dream up new stories along the way!
Thinking about it leads to some anxiety, frankly, especially acknowledging that I need to keep drafting history articles and the occasional academic piece as well just to stay relevant. While that’s at least writing, it’s not necessarily getting me closer to the small library of books I hope to leave behind when I’m gone. It’s a little frustrating, to be honest, and makes me ever more desirous of retirement so I can concentrate on work that I want to be remembered for. High hopes, I know, but such are the dreams of story tellers!
Yet each and every one of us faces this exact same dilemma, don’t we? We all have things that we want to accomplish … and a growing sense—or maybe even fear—that we just won’t have time. That our clock will run down to zero with a load of projects still on the work table, the easel, the garage floor … or hanging out, unfinished, on a hard drive.
When we’re young, we take time for granted. We waste it by the bucket, don’t we? As a young lieutenant I remember hearing someone say that I shouldn’t be so serious, that I should enjoy life more, that our time on this earth was short. I remember what I thought in response; are you kidding me? That last meeting I sat through lasted three years! Clearly, there’s no shortage of time. Yet now, as I creep up on the big five-oh, I know better, and time routinely kicks me around like a schoolyard bully.
Oh, by this point in my life I know all the tricks, and the fact that I work full time in an extremely demanding and stressful job while drafting my third novel, cranking out multiple magazine articles a year, and as many blog entries as I’m able, argues that, at least in my own mind, I’m winning the fight against time. But in the end, of course, time always wins and I’ll go to my end, at no matter what age, knowing there were still things I wanted to do in life.
When it’s all said and done, I suppose, all one can really do is make the best possible use of the time each of us is allotted. Not knowing exactly how long that candle will burn is, of course, what makes life exciting … and keeps us making daily decisions over how we want to spend that allowance.
How can I make better decisions about what to do with my time? How can I meet personal goals while enriching the lives of my family and loved ones? These are the questions we should be asking ourselves daily, before sitting down to binge watch the Kardashians. What do I really want to achieve … and am I making decisions that reflect those goals? These are important questions and, as I get older, I ask them of myself with ever greater frequency.
So, what is it you want to achieve in life? Are you working toward that goal, or just day-dreaming about it with season thirty-two of the Simpsons playing in the background. There’s really no time like the present to get after that which is important to you, whether it’s a lifelong project, a learning objective, a bucket list vacation, or family goal.
Time is indeed short, as the saying goes. So what’s stopping you from getting stuck in that most pressing desire of the heart? That thing that excites you in your private, innermost thoughts. That place of wonder to where your inner child retreats when life gets too demanding, too stressful, or just plain too much. Where is it your mind wanders? And why haven’t you been there yet? Maybe it’s time…
M. G. Haynes