Alexandersmap

    Tag: Tempus Fugit

    • Countdown Days

      I dabble in spreadsheets. It began (and continues) as a necessary skill in my career, but really I love the story that numbers tell you. Not too long ago I mapped out the next five years on a spreadsheet, just to see what I was working with. Using a specific date of relevance as a target date for zero, I created a countdown to that date. It turned out to be a nice round number: 1900. That became my five year plan number, and so a countdown began.

      A countdown to what? Why, the person I want to be at that number. What I want to be doing and where I want to be doing it. All sorts of things come into play then: fitness level, financial goals, career accomplishments, places to be visited, books to be read or written, and yes: daily blog posts (who’s up for 1900 more?!).

      You can fit a lot into 1900 lines on a spreadsheet if you try hard enough. I have many goals in my life, and I started plugging in events and trips and milestones onto that spreadsheet. It turns out there’s a lot to do in 1900 days, and one can’t very well waste them. But 1900 is a big number, best broken down into bite-sized bits. 90 days is something many of us can relate to. It’s a quarter of a year, three months, one trimester. 90 days is a number we can grasp and work with. Divide 1900 by 90 and you get 21 and change. It turns out 1900 wasn’t optimal after all, but it’s the number and loose change be damned. That loose change is full of days of ripe experience, or at least they ought to be, and who’s going to complain about a few extra days as a buffer against the curveballs of life?

      90 days offer countdowns within countdowns. We can break it down to 30 days and weeks and single days, and do what we can with them in their time. Life is a countdown, and we all know the score. The end game isn’t the zero we reach on our expiration but the blank spaces we fill up along the way. Putting things in black and white offers a clear imperative. Do something with today lest it slip away. Tempus fugit.

      Upcoming events become countdowns within a countdown too. Some trips I’m looking forward to are counting down as I write this, and I calculate the things that must happen between now and then, adding to-do items to a growing list and get to it. There’s growing excitement in a countdown, and I feel the stir of faraway places and future goals and tasks accomplished in each entry on the spreadsheet.

      The key to a blank spreadsheet is filling in what we’re measuring. We aren’t just counting down to nothing after all: we’re creating a lifetime of memories, filled with all the things that make up our days. A countdown merely brings focus to an otherwise ambiguous stack. Like any great salesperson, we must sell the vision. In this case, we’re selling ourselves on the vision, that we might take the necessary steps to get from here to there. When we finish, we can see all the things we did to get there, and celebrate the journey all the more.

      But why five years and change? Haven’t we got so much more left in the tank than that? We must set a fixed date in our future that we might strive for more in that timeframe. Sure, we all anticipate many more days. If we’re lucky enough we can add a few more countdowns after this one is done. But that’s a much longer spreadsheet, isn’t it? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

    • To Live For

      “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

      You may have heard this before here, but time flies (tempus fugit). The more we put behind us, the more we might see just how essential purpose is to our identity. We produce what we might in our lifetimes, we nurture a character that grows through the seasons, systems, habits and trends we put it through, and always, we are that average of the people we associate with the most. To live for others is to carry ourselves in such a way that we make a ripple that rolls outward beyond us.

      A friend was recently trying to lure me to another company with tales of a great culture, fancy resume-friendly titles and high earnings potential. A different version of me would have jumped at the chance to make a big splash. Imagine the splash on LinkedIn when I posted that change? But this version of me sees the folly in that plunge. I’ll take the quiet ripple, thank you. To be present and engaged in this place and time with those who mean the most is everything.

      Purpose seems such a lofty word for the average person. We conjure up heroic images—characters who transcend the routine and lead to us to salvation. The idea of a purpose can be a trap disguised as a compass heading. The trap is in forever looking elsewhere for true north, when it’s usually whispering in our ear all along.

      What’s it all about, Alfie?
      Is it just for the moment we live?
      — Burt Bacharach, Alfie

      The right it transforms us. The wrong it has us running around in circles. Life is short and yes, time flies. We have no time to waste chasing the wrong cause when the essential is right there waiting for us.

      We spend far too much time trying to find a higher purpose and not nearly enough embracing the essential truth we encounter along the way. It’s all about being there for those who mean the most to us in our time. As infuriating as it might feel for those who haven’t yet found it, trust in the process: we know what to live for when we find it. When we give of ourselves to the right people that love is reflected back to us.

    • Time Will Have His Fancy

      ‘The years shall run like rabbits,
      For in my arms I hold
      The Flower of the Ages,
      And the first love of the world.’
      But all the clocks in the city
      Began to whirr and chime:
      ‘O let not Time deceive you,
      You cannot conquer Time.
      ‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
      Where Justice naked is,
      Time watches from the shadow
      And coughs when you would kiss.
      ‘In headaches and in worry
      Vaguely life leaks away,
      And Time will have his fancy
      To-morrow or to-day.
      — W.H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening

      January seems to be the time for planning out the year in neat blocks of time, priorities and action steps. It’s fairly easy work to define what must be done, it’s harder to actually do it. The execution of a plan is always the trick, isn’t it? Yet broken down into small enough steps, we somehow find the task more manageable. It seems there’s always enough time for the things that matter most, should we build our lives around our priorities. But time has other plans for us, should we lose our way.

      Lately in my work I talk a lot of urgency. We ought to feel it in our bones, and do something about it now. It’s cliché for a reason, for it matters a great deal in said execution of plan. It’s a call to arms, really—a reminder that time flies and the wishes of today are the regrets of tomorrow. We must therefore seize what flees, as our old friend Seneca reminded us.

      Later in Auden’s magical poem, he writes of wondering what we’ve missed. Wrestling with the eternal, we realize that we are not. We are but a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass, as Chet Powers wrote and The Youngbloods made famous. It’s an unfair practice to dwell on that which has slipped from our grasp if we use the tally to embrace a helpless state of low agency, but when we use these moments to learn to be bolder in our choices now they may be just the catalyst we need. Feel the urgency yet? Carpe diem, friend. Tempus fugit.

      All this is nothing but a stack of words until we do something with our time. Be bold. Be audacious. Decide what to be and go be it. Today will slip away just as all the rest have. Yet we may still do something with the hour at hand.

    • On Time

      “Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.” — Jim Rohn

      We have an extra day added to the calendar this year. Leap Year and all that. What will we do with one more? Each day in the books is one less, if you look at it a certain way, or one more, if you look at it another way. Do we look at the scarcity of time left or the abundance of experiences we’ve accumulated along the way?

      Perhaps the answer is to be aware of the time going by and to be deliberate in our use of it. Wasting less time by utilizing it better. That’s a good reason to make goals and focus on productivity, but the root of each ought to be a resounding answer to the question, “how do I want to use my time?”

    • Pick Your Moment

      “Pick your moment and the sea will do what it can for you, however small the boat and however unpracticed the helm. The wind was steady on the beam, and as it says in the old Gaelic song, it felt as if Freyja ‘would cut a thin oat straw with the excellence of her going.’

      This moment of ecstatic ease is the significant historical fact. Anywhere that can be reached on a calm day will be reached. What matters is the invitation, not the threat, and if there is an opening, people will take it…

      The peopling of the Shiants is only one fragment of an endless chain. That is why this crossing of a potentially alarming sea, at a moment which is picked because the weather is kind and the spring is coming, because the tide is running with you and the sun is out, when you can see where you are going and you have everything you need, is one of the deepest of all historical experiences. Don’t imagine the past as a place full of catastrophe and horror. This is its colour: a chance fairly taken, a sense of happiness in the light of spring. The Minch is laced with the wakes of ancestors and this wonderful, easy-limbed stirring of Freyja on the long Atlantic swell is a stirring of the past. I smile in the boat now and open my face to the warmth of the sun and the shining of the sky.” — Adam Nicolson, Sea Room

      “While you see a chance, take it.” — Steve Winwood

      When shall we leap? When is that moment when we look around and say, “It’s now or never” and go beyond our norm? We each have these moments in our lives when we see the gap and decide it’s not all that far of a leap after all. Perhaps we’ve closed it with growth. Perhaps we’ve built a strong enough foundation that it’s not so much a leap as it is a natural next step. Perhaps. But there’s still that gap… until finally we close it. Or perhaps we reach our limit, never to be closed. What will it be?

      The breathtaking beauty of Nicolson’s prose was masterfully set up in story-after-story of tragedy at sea. Of “the Stream of the Blue Men” that is the unpredictable and unforgiving Minch sinking boats and taking the lives of leapers for centuries before. We know of places like this—places that will take the lives of the unprepared and unlucky alike. Mountains and oceans, whole continents full of wild things. Flight and now space. Frontiers are meant to be conquered, as they say. The gap between who we are and what we’ll become are meant to be closed. What matters is the invitation, not the threat. This is the way we progress. Just pick your moment.

      But don’t wait forever. The gap is our game, but the clock is our nemesis. We aren’t getting any younger, friend. Tempus fugit: carpe diem. We ought to leap when the leaping looks good.

    • Reading Good Books

      “The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

      This year, speeding right along as it does, is reminding me that the reading has slowed considerably. When the year is done I’ll have read fewer books than I did a year ago, but on the whole better books. Foundational books, pointed to by authors I’ve admired in quotes and breathless recollection. Some history, some philosophy, some great fiction and some regional travel books too. But very few of what used to be called dime store novels—those books that were cheap, popular and formulaic. It’s not that they aren’t fun to read now and then, it’s that they keep me from reading something better.

      To keep improving we must continue to find and consume the most nutritious ideas we can feed our minds. But we can’t stop there, for ideas left adrift are doomed to float away on a sea of words, forever lost in the noise. We must write about the things we encounter, re-read key passages to understand and then make something of them. To become a better person we must raise the average—our average.

      To be an avid reader, we need to have a lifestyle that supports reading. Comfortable chairs in well-lit spaces are wonderful, but it’s more than where we place our bottom—it’s how comfortable we are in that space to open up a portal to another world right there and then. I can read just as easily in a cramped middle seat in coach as I can in a leather recliner in warm natural lighting. To immerse ourselves in anything we’ve got to feel comfortable enough in the act to take the plunge. The people who surround us are more essential to this than any architectural detail. The driver’s seat in our automobiles are a great place to read architecturally, until we start driving and must pay attention to more important things (perhaps someone can mention that to the people with their noses in their phone zipping along in the high speed lane?).

      Once we’ve established a supportive reading environment, we ought to continue raising the bar on what we read. I’m a big fan of a few e-book writers for the page-turner fiction they write, but like sugar I’ve learned that a little goes a long way while a lot will have negative consequences. A healthy ratio of nutrition balances out the empty calories. Better choices in reading material lifts us to places unseen previously. Our view expands as we rise higher and higher up the stack of books.

      It’s too soon for a best books of the year summary, for there’s still a few strong candidates on the shelf awaiting their turn. But looking back at the year, I’m pleased with the best of the books I’ve read for the life-changing impact they’re having. The very best books, no matter the genre, lift us up in this way. The magic in reading is finding the gold. Sure, we may stumble upon a gem on the surface now and then, but to find the richest content we’ve got to mine deeper.

      It’s true that not reading is an art in itself. A useful filter we ought to apply more often in favor of better choices. Choosing to read, but digesting better reads. Tempus fugit: time flies. So read the great stuff first. Perhaps it will be that gem we’ll want to ponder and write about ourselves.

    • So Much to Admire

      I know, you never intended to be in this world.
      But you’re in it all the same.

      So why not get started immediately.

      I mean, belonging to it.
      There is so much to admire, to weep over.

      And to write music or poems about.

      Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
      Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
      Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
      Bless touching.

      You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
      Or not.
      I am speaking from the fortunate platform
      of many years,
      none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
      Do you need a prod?
      Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
      Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
      and remind you of Keats,
      so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
      he had a lifetime.
      — Mary Oliver, The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac

      Whispers from a poet, reminding us of the urgency of the moment. Tempus fugit… time flies. Go out and live boldly. Observe and be stirred—get right in the mix. And create something meaningful that might stand on it’s own. It’s a formula for living often repeated here, in this blog about doing all of these things. My daily reminder to not waste a second on the trivial, shared with those who wish to go along for the ride.

      The thing is, when we read the stoics, when we immerse ourselves in poetry and philosophy, in nature and travel, and most of all in the audacious act of heightened awareness, we too begin to live. Less of our own time is wasted. We become hungry for more and more experience, with a burning desire to share it with all who will listen and see for themselves. By opening the senses we let the magic in.

      “Ignorance is not bliss; it’s a missed opportunity.“ — Adam Nicolson, Sea Room

      There’s a price for ignorance paid in unfulfilled wonder and delight. There’s so much to do still. So much to admire. Like that of a poet no longer with us, it’s a whisper (or a shout) to make now count. We’re just part of the choir, singing our part, reminding the congregation to dance with the miracle of life with all the enthusiasm we can muster.

    • Eyes Open

      “There seemed to be endless obstacles preventing me from living with my eyes open, but as I gradually followed up clue after clue it seemed that the root cause of them all was fear.”
      ― Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own

      When we think about it, most everything we imagine to be the worst case scenario is never going to come true. For every tragedy in the news, there’s a million ordinary days unfolding at the same time. For every unfortunate accident on the path to adventure there’s a thousand souls transcending their limiting beliefs. To live in fear is to handcuff ourselves to a previous version of ourself that will never experience everything the world could offer. Choose to be more audacious.

      The thing is, we all keep paying our dues, deferring the audacious for one more day of ordinary. The end game is we’ll run out of time if we don’t do it while we’re healthy and bold enough to try. In the end, that’s what we ought to fear: running out of time to finally live that un-lived life. While there’s still time. We must open our eyes and see the truth in those old Stoic guideposts: Tempus fugit. Memento mori… Carpe diem.

      There’s still plenty of ordinary in my days, and in moderation that’s okay too, but we ought to listen to that voice inside us calling for more and step to it more often. Friends and fellow bloggers Fayaway once posted an image that speaks to this wrestling match between the ears. I’ve kept this as a reminder to myself to push aside timidity more often in favor of boldness. To live a full life we must learn to fully live life:

    • A Dream Won’t Chase You Back

      If you got a chance, take it, take it while you got a chance
      If you got a dream, chase it, ’cause a dream won’t chase you back
      If you’re gonna love somebody
      Hold ’em as long and as strong and as close as you can
      ‘Til you can’t
      — Cody Johnson, ‘Til You Can’t

      In America, this week is always distracting. There are so many moving parts before Thanksgiving: Ingredients to purchase and prepare, people to check in with traveling from near and far, furniture to plot out in anticipation of rooms filled to capacity, cleaning (so much cleaning!), and for some of us, work to reconcile before the holiday break. This week is a hectic, wonderfully stressful mess that some of us love more than any other in a year full of blessed weeks.

      We build the life we most want, don’t we? But we can’t control everything, we must be open to the changes the universe presents to us. Who won’t be at the table this year who was there last year? Who won’t be at next year’s table? It might just be us. The underlying message is to do what must be done now. That could be rightly viewed as the overall theme of this blog for most of the last five years. Tempus fugit. Memento mori. Carpe diem.

      Most of us postpone the call or the question or simply beginning what is so much more important than what we’re doing otherwise. Most of us waste time. Henry had some advice for such moments:

      As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
      The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
      — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      We ought to feel the urgency of Thanksgiving every week. Perhaps we’d be exhausted and collapse on the couch eventually, but then again, perhaps we’d condition ourselves to living a larger life—full of love and a wee bit of conflict, anticipation and conversation, and something sweet to cap it all off with before you clean up yet again and look ahead to the next big thing. We aren’t here to kill time, we’re here to make the most of our time together before we lose our place at the table. By all means, seize it (because it won’t chase you back)!

    • Halloween Characters

      Another Halloween is upon us. Frightening how quickly the time flies, isn’t it? How quickly we move through our days. The only proper way to honor that is to make this one special.

      Ah, but there’s work to do. People to talk to and things scheduled. But at least we can get a glimpse of adventure in, yes? What is that one thing that will make today memorable—to set it apart from last Tuesday or next Thursday? Every day doesn’t have to be an exclamation point in a long life, but it ought to be the kind of day worthy of the precious investment you’ve made in it.

      To be fair, I can’t remember most anything about any specific Halloween. I remember wearing ridiculous costumes to a few parties, I remember the years when packs of kids would trick or treat through the neighborhood. And I’ve grown familiar with the lean years, when all the kids in the neighborhood grew up and moved away, including my own. These days, we’re lucky to get eight or ten kids at the door for candy. What are we to do with all that candy if the kids don’t come? Hmm.

      If Halloween reminds of us anything, it’s that we are all playing characters in the moment. We can always put on another costume and be someone else for the next party. We can be a superhero or a bum, a princess or a witch, a king or a jester. Really, anything goes if we want to play the part. So why not the rest of the year? What exactly are we doing with our character development anyway? Isn’t it time to be more creative and fun with our choices?

      The thing is, we can dwell on time flying by or we can simply live each day as if it were our last. One day we’ll be right. But let’s hope for a long future, shall we? Full of many more trick or treaters, and the occasional sweet treat. Maybe even a character we’ve been dreaming of being for too many unfulfilled days. Decide what to be and go be it. That’s the trick to a fulfilling life.

      Happy Halloween.