Spending Time

Planning is generally done in earnest this time of year, but at some point, action must take over. Too much planning becomes procrastination. We can plan ourselves all the way to the grave if we let ourselves. We must do to become. I believe it was Melissa Heisler who said living is a verb, not a noun. There’s a deep truth in that statement. We must act to live a full life.

We must begin in earnest, today, to build on those hopes and dreams we spent New Year’s thinking about. For if not now, when? There is no other time. Baby steps turn into long strides that turn into giant leaps forward. There’s momentum in forward motion.

“Six months from now, what you will you wish you had spent time on today?” — James Clear

Where we spend time matters a great deal. We forget that sometimes as we go through our days getting from here to there. But where is there anyway? Is it simple here with a few more aches and pains? Time well-spent resonates differently for us than wasted time does. Wasted time feels hollow, while our well-spent time feels far more fulfilling. Who wants to look back on a day or a year or a life feeling empty?

We intuitively know not to drink stagnant water, but forget we’re mostly water ourselves. Are we flowing towards something or settling into stagnant? Puddles stagnate then evaporate. We must find our ocean before we turn to dust. Too harsh? The point is to find the channel that keeps us flowing creatively, contributing to a greater purpose, so we might ultimately look back on this part of the journey as the point where we broke through the dam and really began making a splash.