Time…
Time is a fickle thing, it seems to stretch on endlessly, yet every so often a person will stop, look at what’s passed behind them and realize time is moving incredibly fast.
I did just that today. While on a walk with my daughter I stopped on a sidewalk not far from home to read the name on a Grade 12 graduation sign that was posted on a front lawn. I thought back to my own high school graduation and how momentous it seemed, and then about my graduation from basic training. The recollections began to cascade, and in the span of two or three seconds, I soared through decades of memories until I was back at the present.
As we started walking again, hand in hand, I realized that I’ve truly done a lot with my time to date but there were also many things unfinished. I remembered I hadn’t written a blog for Unbloused for almost a month, and that I still hadn’t arranged a call with my old command team partner, though I said I would….about 2 months ago. The “undone” list started to grow, almost physically taking up space in my mind, and I became, if I’m honest, sullen.
I had no reason to be sullen. It was a gorgeous day, I was out for a stroll with my daughter, and I was going to make pork chops for supper, and I make a pretty mean pork chop, so what reason did I have to be sullen? But there I was, as cranky and foul as if I had been given a handful of first round Personnel Evaluation Reports’s (PER’s) to correct. Why?
It wasn’t until later, after putting the kids down for bed, that it dawned on me. I had been wasting time. Well perhaps wasting time isn’t the right term, I had been treading time. I was doing stuff, but it wasn’t really achieving anything or getting me anywhere. I started to evaluate the time traps I was falling into; Tiktok, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or just pacing the house debating, almost to the point indecision, about what I should be doing.
Time is precious, and for us mortals…limited. Today was a reminder of that. There are a lot of distractions in life, social media being one, indecision and laziness another. It’s easy to say, "I’ll do that tomorrow!”. Except when tomorrow arrives and it’s inconvenient, or Tiktok has a new [insert] trend, you simply reason with yourself “oh, too late now, I’ll do that tomorrow!”
It becomes a habit fast and admitting you’re wasting time may leave you feeling like I did.
There’s a time and place for everything, including social media and being lazy or delaying projects, but don’t let it get in the way of making important memories for yourself like your high school graduation, your jump course, your first tour, etc.
The same rule applies to your stories. If it’s been on your list to do but you haven’t sat down to write your story, set a reminder on your phone or calendar and carve out the time before it passes you by.
Remember, a story is something that anchors you in time, it makes you an immovable force, a witness to events that will be viewed through different eyes, and critiqued by a different standard of ethics and beliefs. Your story will be someone else’s important memory too.
All the best,
John