Wasting Time

In my continued attempt to embrace life and love I have found myself questioning the limitations of time. That I should be given an arbitrary period of time to express life seems contradictory to my being in the first place. Why am I not given choice of time if this is my life to live? If I am here to express life, God, or make spiritual choices, why am I not given the ability to choose the length of time I have to make those choices or express those ideas?
I've spent a lot of time "planning" my life. Well, comparatively a lot of time. Somehow my plans have grown to rather epic proportions, at least to the point where the process of reaching theses goals I have planned seems to rob me of the life I'm planning for. I guess more to the point, the plans I've made have started to become more of an investment than I'm willing to make. One cannot enjoy the fruits of one's labors if one is too numb or tired to recognize them. Not to mention the good ol' adage of "ya can't take it with you." I suppose that could apply to our experiences too huh? Maybe it's a moot point as to whether or not my life is defined by accomplishments or experiences. If we can't take those either then where does it really leave us anyway? I (nor can most I suppose) can't claim to know the answer. But I do know that the search has become that much more important to me. In other words I'm a little less concerned with the achievements or experiences as I am with finding a perspective to value these things. That requires slowing down and backing off from all of those plans, opting out of a few experiences now and then.

Sometimes I feel as if what I'm doing is a mapped detour in my life, as if it's part of the process to get me somewhere else. Nothing like predestination or anything like that, just kinda a required process of growth, to be taken as I wish. That, along with the fact life goes on whether I like it or not, sort of keeps me in focus. Personal sense is usually what gets me upset about things. My lack of satisfaction with my condition in life remains so long as I feel that I'm not adequately expressing life itself. In other words, I'm wasting time - perhaps not in terms of accomplishments or experiences, but in spiritual growth and understanding.

Recently I've begun the lesson of learning that, although we all have our own struggles in life, and our own issues to handle, we, indeed, have each other for support. Perhaps we will never be able to solve each other's problems, but we can be one another's comfort through those tough times. The key is not being afraid to help and knowing when to ask for it.

I still don't understand why we've only given a limited time here. It seems to put a pressure of performance on us - to "make the most of it" or "live like you were dyin'." Whether or not that really gets us anywhere in terms of our real purpose I couldn't say. Maybe we are just here to enjoy the ride. If that be the case I suppose I should ask myself what I'm doing wrong.

Originally posted Wednesday, October 18, 2006