Time Wasters
Summer traffic in the Okangan; sort of speaks for itself doesn’t it? There I was, in my little car (no air conditioning), twenty-nine degrees, and stuck between two semis. Traffic jam. Augh. I inched forward, as far as I could without hitting the driver ahead of me. (Maybe that little extra bit of energy on the gas pedal would make us move faster?) Of course, it didn’t. With no where to turn, I decided to tune, into my radio. John Tesh radio show, on 101-5 SILK FM. He delivers, “Intelligence for Your Life”, and the topic, “time wasters”. How appropriate! After all, I consider traffic jams to be a big ‘ol waste of my precious time.
But he was on to something else today. According to John’s info, human beings spend much of their time and energy doing things that are…useless. Time wasters. Activities that will not get us any further ahead then if we were to just sit and chill out. Instead, we try to force uncontrollable fates, like inching forward in a traffic jam, for example.
I started thinking about other daily behaviours, and how impatient I can be when I want to control time. Think about it, how much energy do you put into the unnecessary? Pushing the button at a crosswalk over and over expecting to make the light change faster. Staring at the timer on a treadmill, in hopes that the speed of your legs will affect the speed of time. Or, watching the clock at work, believing your eyes will make the hands move to five o’clock. And that doesn’t even scratch the procrastination issue (self acclaimed “send/receive” addict).
Well, apparently none of these activities are beneficial. In fact, they seem to have an adverse effect – showing us that we ultimately have no control of time. And yet, it seems we always battle for it. We want time to slow down or speed up. We’re frustrated when something is not on time. We need more time. We have no time! Our lives revolve around time, and yet it is the one thing, we have no power over.
Life will not move more quickly by the activities we do. Although we tend to think it will. In reality, time is simply a measurement that we use to indicate, evaluate, how we utilized each moment. We do, have the power, to control how we allow time to affect us. The practice of patience, and trust that everything is happening just as it should. Like Eckhart Tolle says in the Power of Now, even at those frustrating moments, breathe it in and accept it, as now. It will soon pass. So, I guess, there is no need to press an elevator call button obsessively anymore. Rather, think about why, in the big picture, it would matter if the elevator gets to me in one minute or five?
In pondering…I realized that the traffic jam was now clear, cars were honking, and people were waving at me (in an unfriendly way). Lost in thought, I had caused a bit of a backup myself! Hmm. Maybe I can control time after all.
But he was on to something else today. According to John’s info, human beings spend much of their time and energy doing things that are…useless. Time wasters. Activities that will not get us any further ahead then if we were to just sit and chill out. Instead, we try to force uncontrollable fates, like inching forward in a traffic jam, for example.
I started thinking about other daily behaviours, and how impatient I can be when I want to control time. Think about it, how much energy do you put into the unnecessary? Pushing the button at a crosswalk over and over expecting to make the light change faster. Staring at the timer on a treadmill, in hopes that the speed of your legs will affect the speed of time. Or, watching the clock at work, believing your eyes will make the hands move to five o’clock. And that doesn’t even scratch the procrastination issue (self acclaimed “send/receive” addict).
Well, apparently none of these activities are beneficial. In fact, they seem to have an adverse effect – showing us that we ultimately have no control of time. And yet, it seems we always battle for it. We want time to slow down or speed up. We’re frustrated when something is not on time. We need more time. We have no time! Our lives revolve around time, and yet it is the one thing, we have no power over.
Life will not move more quickly by the activities we do. Although we tend to think it will. In reality, time is simply a measurement that we use to indicate, evaluate, how we utilized each moment. We do, have the power, to control how we allow time to affect us. The practice of patience, and trust that everything is happening just as it should. Like Eckhart Tolle says in the Power of Now, even at those frustrating moments, breathe it in and accept it, as now. It will soon pass. So, I guess, there is no need to press an elevator call button obsessively anymore. Rather, think about why, in the big picture, it would matter if the elevator gets to me in one minute or five?
In pondering…I realized that the traffic jam was now clear, cars were honking, and people were waving at me (in an unfriendly way). Lost in thought, I had caused a bit of a backup myself! Hmm. Maybe I can control time after all.
posted by Desiree Daniel @ 10:29 AM
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