It’s All About Time!! Blog post!

Does time really matter? I often ask myself this question.  In an effort to enjoy life and be mindful of the “here and now,” the idea of time seems to be one of the greatest enemies of a peaceful life. Lately, I have heard friends make the following statements:

“I’m getting older and my clock is ticking. If I don’t have kids soon…”

“I’m blank years old and I haven’t achieved what I want. What kind of success/man/woman am I?”

“We’ve been dating for …. And I don’t see the movement that I’ve hoped for.”

“Now that we are married/committed, its time for us to act this way.”

…..And the list goes on…..

My father once told me that to Compare is to Despair. I wonder if we actually understand that including time as the variable through which we define our current standing is an unwinnable temporal comparison that inevitably leads to the huge amount of self-deprecation, anxiety, depression, and all of the other clinically fear-based terms that exist and are prevalent today in ME, my friends, and society as a whole.

With my career, I often fly a lot. And although I love planes, the thought of being in a plane crash, while locked inside of a pressurized metal tube is always in the back of my head. Life is like a lot of things, but for this blog post, I’d like for you to think of it as like a plane ride. It has a definite beginning and a definite end(Time). If you travel the east coast by air, you know that the Noreasters in the winter are only trumped by the thunderstorms of the spring and summer for active rollercoaster airplane rides. The DC to New York and Boston routes are consistently the worst.

In the beginning of the flight we are on the ground. We load up, get in our seat and buckle up.  After they close the door(causing a little anxiety..wondering if we have more Time), we then listen to the flight safety tips, and begin our taxi to the runway. That’s when the fun, or real anxiety begins.  Imagine it’s a windy day, and the pilots have to control the plane down the runway as it is pushed from side to side. As soon as the plane takes off a huge gust of wind comes and the plane rises dramatically and jerks to the left…then to the right.  Okay! Honestly, at this point I might be sweating a little too because I’m thinking about my Time left here in this body. I think about all of the other alternatives.  Should I have taken a car? Am I going to faint? Can I take four hours of this..or five..or six? I’m comparing. And already my racing heart beat and bead of sweat on my head has the best of me.  I’m not in control and that along with the idea of a finite life(Time) has me in a state of despair.  What if this happens? What if that happens? Will it hurt? Will I survive? Will I make it? Will they Miss me? What about this….? What about…..? STOP IT! MJ

Not only does this happen to me on most flights, but on most days, that I just get up out of the bed and go through the process, of being an entrepreneur, professor, business man, friend, lover, son, brother, musician, etc.  The reality is that I/we am/are never in control. Yet we have been domesticated in such a way as to judge ourselves in unfair terms…and with one in-particular – the ultimate one….TIME.

So how can one gain mindfulness and calm in the turbulent Times of life, or that plane ride, or that relationship? With a couple of empowering words starting with Faith(Timeless). Then there are terms such as love, acceptance, and forgiveness – to name just a few. I often respond to the statement “Have a safe trip!” with the statement, “Even if I don’t, know that I’m okay!” Because at the core of my soul, I have faith (Thanks God for mom and dad!)

The funny thing is that, through the law of attraction, these words have a way of being contagious. Just as fear begets fear, all of the powerful words of acceptance..ie Faith, have the same effect. On that same plane ride while on approach, we were over the white capped ocean-landing at Logan in Boston – which is a notorious approach. A gust of wind swoops in and all of the people on the plane gasp—except for one.  He was a 3 year old sitting next to me and said “MOMMY! Wooooooow.  Make em do it again!” All of the adults laughed because with all of the collective intelligence, all of the business leaders, all of the super successful “Type A” people on that plane; we were all schooled by a child to enjoy our Time – all of it! A Child to whom Time meant nothing!..Not the potential for loss, not the potential to gain materially, Not the potential to win the next argument, not the chance to get back at an enemy, not even the chance for potential love.  To that child, TIME meant the opportunity to enjoy the next “rollercoaster-like” bump in the road – Today.   What a lesson in Time!

So I challenge each of us to accept what we have now and be happy with our place in life now.  If you just do this little thing, Time wont matter. And where you don’t have Time control issues, you cannot have anxiety. And imagine life without Anxiety…Ahhhh…..Peace!

Some may say you need actual medicine to get to this point. That may be true, however, I know that faith and positivity, trust and love are medicine that scientists have yet to create in the form of a pill.  These terms work and, again, they are contagious.  Therefore, look at each next second as the beginning of the rest of your life and do so with so much anticipation that you can’t help but affect the soul of the world – and that’s forever.

I think I’ll try it today myself.  Peace and Love MJ