spiralofhope

Self-time >

by the Mind, Body, Spirit Academy of Martial Arts
https://web.archive.org/web/19991023074155/http://www.flowinghands.com/mbs_htm/mbs.art.self.time.htm

It is good to consider how we apportion our time. How many of us rush through one activity, only half-present, to arrive at another — and then, just as before, engage that second endeavor with less than all of our being. How many of us, too often, just put in time, rushing to get somewhere — somewhere which never comes — without being totally involved?

When we do this, are we really living life? … or we are just filling time. We say we are waiting until “our time is our own”. We divide time into parts — one part reserved for our friends, another reserved for work, another reserved for our children, etc. The time left over we consider to be our time — “time” when we can do something for ourself– like reading, writing, research, walks, hobbies etc. — the things that we like.

But how wise is this? If we added up our “not our own” time we would probably see that we spend a great deal of our life, perhaps half, three-quarters — or more, not really aware, not truly living — speeding dully through life — simply because of our attitude.

But what would it be like if we didn’t divide time into such separate parts, such categories, anymore. Suppose we considered the time with friends our own time, the time at work our own time, the time with our children our own time. What if we could find a way to see that the time we spend with our responsibilities is as much our own time as our time with hobbies and leisure.

What if we could find ways to make the time we spend with others interesting and involving and become a part of what we are doing during such times. If we could make this change, think what it would mean for the quality of our life. Think how much more full our life would be. It would be minus the vacant drudgery we feel being somewhere we don’t really want to be. If we could do this, we would enjoy being everywhere we are.

If all of our time were our own, we could be responsible for what we do. We could interact from our hearts and minds fully — with caring. We wouldn’t need to just fill space, to just get the job done, because we would be the job, we would be the activity, and it would be us. It would not just be something outside us, it would be within us as well.

If we could make more of our time truly our own we could have alertness, positivity, and vitality at all times, and not that dull sensation of being separated into alive and not alive, here and not here so much. We could find aliveness in all we do.

What might this mean to us? What might this mean to those around us?

Certainly, to strive to eliminate the mind-set that apportions time into “not” our time and “our”time is a goal well worth striving for.