Perspectives on Time

I certainly feel the need for time to “cram,” to learn, to be able to use all the info-tech tools I have available, and to have time to sort out my own feelings of the events, when someone you know or love, dies. I remember a futurist’s adage about Paradigm Shifts –when a new idea, program, development or whatever changes the rules — everyone starts anew.

Starting anew can be hard. Some of us who have had to start over know just how hard it can be. Sometimes starting anew is beginning a new long term relationship, sometimes it is moving to new environs and becoming acclimated to the weather, the culture, finding new friends or associates to talk with and even changing the sorts of activity you have become used to. All of this really is about changes…but then again, change takes time, so this is about time.

A few years ago, a survey for Time magazine found that 69 percent of the surveyed would like to “slow down and live a more relaxed life”; 61 percent agreed that “earning a living today requires so much effort that it’s difficult to find time to enjoy life”; 89 percent agreed that it was more important to spend time with their families.

Author Lee Grossman in his book of 1974, The Change Agent, talks about the steadily increasing information absorption gap. The overabundance of offerings and options which combines with human limitations to restrict organizational abilities to adapt or react to developments which could actually help. It was bad back then too?

My recent reading of the book by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger and Rebecca R. Merrill, First Things First, definitely helps in today’s situation of not having time to keep up, and I highly recommend this book for any library, and those who would read it. While the authors come to their conclusions through working as time management consultants, this work is more about values, and how to develop a program which puts principles first, allowing room for the rest of the urgent and important stuff to fall in place naturally.
Now we are having to deal with the issues of AI (automated intelligence). Some like scanning, have called it an oxymoron. Like ‘organized chaos.’

On my recent trip across the Great Plains of South Dakota and Washington and through the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming there were times I noticed that the greater the vistas, the more magnificent the mountains, the slower I seemed to be moving, even while maintaining a 65 mph speed. And time became insignificant.

We remember those precious moments with loved ones, moments that were so wonderful that time stood still. I have experienced moments in music, when the sonority of the orchestra was so perfect that it sounded as one instrument–the organ–yet it was as if I could hear each instrument at the same time. Those moments sometimes cause people to cry, out of pure joy.

In our efforts to pack into each day every possible activity and new learning, we sometimes lose sight of what it is we are about, what is going on around us, the beautiful people and vistas, even though what we do and how we do it, in a larger context may be so very important to those around us and perhaps to the rest of the world.

The buzz word, “Burnout” has been described differently by many psychologists and authors, but it is basically a loss of effectiveness in situations within time constraints. It is a wake-up call for all of us to figure out what is really important to us, to our families, to our community.

There are often certain persons make a difference in the quality of life of many families, friends and community, because they have a sense of what is right, a sense that what they are trying to do is achievable, and have been able to know or find that which is important for them…first. Even young people, have made differences, giving of themselves to make things better for all, leaving their spirit to others to carry on where they left off. I hadn’t known my Daughter-in-law for very long or very well, but at her Memorial service, the Mayor of Issaquah, WA told of how Amanda had made such a difference in how the city now handles recycling and other ecological issues. Time stood still, the city flag was flown at half-mast in her honor.

It’s unfortunate that we don’t always recognize, in the present moment, those spirits that can move us to make unnoticed, but dramatic steps toward a better life, until those persons are gone. Pray that we all remember this lesson. We all need to be working constructively, positively and perhaps aggressively at making a difference for the quality of life that is so special between relationships for everyone. The greater we can make that difference grow, then time becomes less significant, for even a short life will have been a full life.