Time

You cannot place your foot in the same river twice. Like a river, our lives change with each moment. You can choose in each moment whether to paddle with the current of your life or against it. Either choice is yours to make. Neither choice is the right one.

Things

The tyranny of things. I am packing and trying to decide what to take with me into the next phase of my life. The process annoys me.

I stood in my basement yesterday and stared long and hard at old lamp parts, pieces of wire and odd screws. My pragmatic mind could come up with many uses for each object I found. My better self screamed, "Chuck it and let's move on already!"

My better self is winning. There are four huge plastic trash bags at the curb. I feel lighter. There are more trash bags in my future.

When I worked in hospice care, I was impressed by the similarity between the black body bags used by undertakers and the black trash bags used for household waste. They differ in the thickness of the plastic. The body bag has a zipper. Otherwise, they are similar.

So, I ultimately come to the realization that I am a thing in the end. I am an animated thing, but someday, when the electromagnetic and chemical processes that animate me cease, I too will be redundant. There is liberation in this. The odd piece of wire or mismatched screw, while potentially useful, are not worth the price of my wasted time and effort. That time, while I am still alive, is more precious than any thing I can possess.

Goals

My natural orientation is forward. Some have voiced their opinion that this is very Aquarian. I simply have seldom had a past or present that could compare with my imagination of the potential for the future. Call me an optimist.

Maintaining ongoing concrete goals, some mundane and some more life-encompassing, is a habit I developed in my nursing practice. Assisting patients from total disability to gradual independence is a profound activity. My work over the years has taught me the value of step-wise, persistent goal setting and achievement.

Many people set goals for themselves based on external expectations of parents, bosses or superego. Some become quite successful. Others lead lives stifled by their own sense of frustration and failure.

Knowing and accepting who I am has helped me greatly to set goals which bring me an increasing sense of freedom and competence. I am not always satisfied with my own talents or lack of talent, but I have learned to accept my limitations. Working within my limitations while honing my skills and talents, I am able to make progress with core goals in my life.

All this takes time, reflection and personal honesty. Time is horribly wasted in too many human lives. It is the most precious element of existence. Spending time in reflection or meditation pays off. It is a good investment. Personal honesty comes with routine meditation or reflection. How can you know yourself if you never spend quality time with yourself? Once you get acquainted with yourself, you can use precious time to get on with being and becoming the person you would like to be.

Another crucial element of goal setting and achievement in my life is organization of time. Current computer apps are very helpful for some. However, I wonder if they present too much information and too many options. I still write things down. Lists and a monthly calendar are mainstays on my desk. I have been using running to-do lists since I was in high school. Each morning, I revise and rewrite my list with priorities running top to bottom. Each evening, I review my list and cross out what I've done.

Keeping life simple helps. Many of my daily goals are very mundane. Taking care of the widgets and rubber bands of daily life, like a stocked refrigerator and an an organized, clean house, leads to greater efficiency in the more abstract areas of existence. As Japanese Buddhists maintain: Person and environment are one.

Well, another goal achieved. I have posted this entry in my blog. Now to my list and the other goals of the day and beyond.

Time

Reading this sentence is time lapsed.
Lapsing time evades. We waste it.
It pours through our minds, our hands.
Mirrors suck it dry with nonsense.
Banks hold the folly of lapsed time.
Lapsed people lie in timeless crypts.

(for Eniko)

Structure

Many people rely on their work to provide their lives with a regularity of structured time. Up at 7, at work by nine, break at 10:30, lunch at 1, and so on. In this situation, the basic skeleton of a practice is already there. For instance, from 7 to 8, you could stretch, exercise or meditate, shower, and have breakfast. At the other end of the work day, you could build another structure of time which would compliment your morning regime of proper diet, exercise and meditation/reading.

The key to utilizing and maintaining a positive structure in your life is regularity. How you protect and nurture your positive structured activities is a measure of how you feel about yourself. People who live in chaos reap more chaos. Eventually they burn out. Their lives are hills and valleys of crisis and elation.

With aging, the foundations laid earlier in life must support an increased burden of physical challenges, emotional losses, and periodic disease. This is inevitable. Therefore, building a solid foundation, a structure, while you are vital and strong, will serve you well in later life.

Practice is difficult, but having no practice is more difficult in the long run.