I had a conversation with someone yesterday that gave me pause. It gave rise to some questions worth pondering, no matter one’s stage in life. While they are in the thick of theirs, and I most definitely am not, the questions are the same. What do we do when time and space open up? When what we did is no longer what is needed. When how we spent our time shape shifts into something different. When what was our priority before belongs to someone else now. Do we rush to fill in the empty space? Schedule any available time, simply because it’s there? Distract ourselves by staying busy, creating new to-do lists, or tackling the next thing? Do we push ahead, or do we pause? Do we wait? Do we wonder? Do we allow the dust of what was to settle before we start kicking up more? Do we sit with the uncertainty long enough for clarity to arrive?
It can take a minute to discover what’s next. To uncover what needs to be seen. To resist the urge to simply do the next thing rather than waiting to discover the next right thing. Time taken is not the same as time wasted.
Time is always of the essence. Not because everything is urgent, but because time is the substance of which our lives are made. It is our most valuable-but-not-renewable resource, and filling our time is not the same as spending our time.What to do with the time we are given is life’s most pressing question. Returning to us again and again, it is the question before us until all of our days are behind us. And it is our answers that add up to our life.
