Time flies faster with each year, or at least that’s what we perceive.
Fearing the fleetness of life, we try harder, we do more. We chase after time, hoping that somehow we’ll be able to catch more of it.
Yet the more we do, the less of it there seems to be.
The faster we run, the more we’re being outrun
The universe has a twisted sense of humour, making it so that the only occasions when we manage to slow the passage of time are when we cease to chase, we don’t try, but we simply are.
Those moments when we are deep in the creative process, when we crack up at a joke with a friend, when the magic of a new tune fills our ears, when we lie quietly in someone’s embrace, when our eyes soak up the beauty of a sunset.
It’s moments of full immersion in our surroundings when time becomes infinite.
Hunger for relevance
We desire to be relevant. We chase that which we believe would leave our imprint on the world.
Even in the cases of individuals whose work was vastly impactful on our culture, what echoes through time is something deeper than the work itself – it’s how they made others feel.
It’s the impression of another person’s total existence expressed through their work, in a feeling that stays with us.
“He made me feel like I’m enough.”
“She taught me what courage is about.”
“He inspired me to seek integrity and honour.”
It’s their talent and effort that we admire, but it’s their tender yet strong human nature that we respect and adore.
The Human Element
What they showed is that the work you do never stands on its own. What gives it a dimension that can last through a lifetime is the human element.
It’s not just how masterfully done the work itself is, but how rich with subtleness of raw human experiences it is.
How alive it made you feel as you were creating it.
How alive it makes other people feel.
How raw and real it is.
The focus is not on who you can be on humanity’s timeline, but what you can do for those around you right now.
Kindness, grief, wonder, and courage
If it’s the sum of moments that creates the future, then this day, right now, is what counts.
The only thing that matters, and we should focus on, is what choice we can make today.
When you look at yourself, you aren’t a sum of where you stand in the grand scheme of human history – you are the grandness that you choose to embody today.
Choosing kindness when you feel the desire to hurt.
Choosing grief when you are tempted to rage.
Choosing wonder when judgment begins to overwhelm.
Choosing acceptance when your inner demons start to divide.
Choosing to stand tall when you feel mighty small.
Between scope and precision
This makes me wonder whether a life lived well relates to the balance between the scope and the precision.
Knowing yourself and understanding what the few things are that should be targeted with all your focus, fire, and precision, while surrendering to the flow and chaos of everything else.
It seems to me that is when we achieve a state where the now never has to be intolerable, and the future never becomes as seductive that we can’t find a single thread of joy in where we are now.
When we consciously discern our priorities and take care of them, peace comes more easily, because what could have been done is the same as what has been done.
The Relevant Work
The relevant work lies not in doing more, but in noticing better.
Awareness is our ride towards infinity.
Doing the work that leaves an imprint on something deep within souls around us is a work that is not bound to time. It spreads subtly in the way we choose to live and breathe. Even when it can’t be measured, its echoes multiply each time they resonate with someone and rearrange pieces anew.
And creates a silent impact that reverberates through narratives, beliefs, names, and generations.
Then, time doesn’t form a line we have to run along in order to prolong.
Rather, the patch of ground where we are stretches upward and downward, forming spheres of wonder we can explore till either peace or eternity runs out.
