Spending the Days

How do you spend your energy?

Your days? Your love? Your life?

We talk so much about being efficient in our movements in the gym, about using our bodies wisely and purposively, about making each motion count ... but do we think about that in our daily lives?

How functional are the daily activities of your life?

The passing of the hours each day ... what do you do with each one?

24. We all get 24. Each and every day. Do you use them well? Or do you squander them?

It's probably safe to say you should not be like me.

I am driven by the days, haunted by the hours, constantly reminded with each breath that the words will never all spill onto paper, that there are not enough minutes on any clock to hold all these thoughts, that life will time out while I am still struggling to express all that is in my head. Not everyone should be this way. It is, most likely, a bit unhealthy.

On the other extreme, I used to have a lover who passed so many hours and days with nothing. Mindless hour after hour filled with fluff and mayhem.

I would ask, "But what are you doing with this time?"

The answer was always the same: "I'm not like you. I can't produce at that rate. I have to have downtime."

Yet the downtime was not paired with much uptime. There was production of ... almost nothing. Day after day. Month after month.

The lines of life challenge us all. Where do we draw them? How do they help us? Hurt us?

If we were called to account for all our hours and our years, could we truthfully say, "I used everything that was given to me."  

Or would we be left grasping for some accomplishment that fell just out of our reach, out of our easily extended reach.

There must exist in this life, somewhere, an in-between, a sanity zone, a place with production and rejuvenation. We have this concept in our physical lives – our bodies demand it – but how to find it in our personal life? Our work life? Our love life?

How do we tame our mind and will?

How do we harness all we have and convert it, sanely, into what we so desperately want to be?

Some people will read this and take it personally, become defensive, feel the heat on the back of their neck and the need to justify their life and actions. Be not one of them.

I stand in judgment of no one but myself.

I merely ask you to take a look and think about your days and your life and your love.

How do you spend your days?

Previous
Previous

The World Is Brutal and You Must Be Brave

Next
Next

Breathe, Pause, Recover