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We are all so busy that we often forget that time is precious commodity. In this short piece, the author challenges us to think about how we are using our time.  How are we traveling on the path of life?  Do we just think that we can get to it tomorrow?  Perhaps tomorrow won’t allow us the time to do the things we want to be doing.

 

I took a different route to work yesterday. And I saw different things.

Suddenly, in a gap between buildings, I spied this view in the photo, above: stairs and a distant clock face above them.

A thought struck immediately:

“Take the steps to make the time…”

And then, a heartbeat later:

“… time for the things that matter.”

I had to stop for a second, to drink it in and let all the bustling commuters around me blur on by.

So what are those things for you? The things that matter?

Life can change at a moment’s notice – we all know this. Profound, unexpected change where the things we previously took for granted become the things we miss, for we can no longer experience them in quite the same way again. At least for now…

At the moment, I’m getting lots of reminders of this. Lots of losses, big and small, in my own life, and in the lives of those close to me.

I guess it comes back to our fragility. Our mortality. Our passage through the (limited) time we have. And our ability to recognise what really matters to us, so we can live it, love it, while it’s here in our hands. 

It’s such a powerful lesson. And one so easily forgotten. For, drawn along in the slipstream of everyday busy-ness, you can forget this fundamental stuff and get tangled in the red tape of frustration or indifference instead. You can be bored by the bureaucracy of the daily grind. Hypnotised by what seems like endless “repetition” of the tasks or habits you engage with.

But maybe there is no repetition. Maybe there’s no treadmill. Maybe we’re walking on a one-way path that will one day find its ending – a path which can lead you to places that feel sacred or numb, depending on where you walk it.

So where will you walk in your life? Today?

Will you take the steps to make time for the things that matter?

And, if so, what would those steps look like?

What will bring you closer to what’s meaningful for you? Closer, perhaps, to the people you love, or the experiences you thrive in, or the dreams that keep your secret fires burning within.

What steps could you take to connect with them?
Nurture them?
Treasure them?

And how might you take those steps even amid the bustling busy-ness of this time of year?
(Or of any other…?)

Text and photo copyright: Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar
Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar (Grad Dip Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a writer, blogger and Sydney psychotherapist in private practice at One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy. Gabrielle also facilitates telephone support groups for people who are living with cancer, for their carers, and for people who have been bereaved through a cancer experience. She was the former editor of a journal on counselling and psychotherapy and she provides regular therapeutic updates on facebook and Twitter @OneLifeTherapy.