Against All Odds

As I sat at the traffic lights I saw ahead of me amongst a sea of giant trucks and fast cars the little butterfly fluttering obliviously over the top of them all, across the lanes, across the road.

I prayed for it's safe passage and wondered what it must be like to go out into the world as a fragile butterfly or a delicate bee, going about fearlessly against all the odds.  There's no hesitation, no shrinking back, just a job to do, a moment to live, even though if you think about it there are dangers on every side for these little creatures. 

Do they even know what fear is? Have they no choice but to live without fear?  What would our lives be like if we had no fear?

What would that be but freedom? Oh little butterfly, leading the way.

“The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough” – Rabindranath Tagore.

Time Is Life

“Life is the struggle to keep death at a respectable distance” – Jim Rohn.

It seems rather strange to me how so many of us are continually conscious of how we spend our money yet give much less thought to how we spend our time. Time isn't money.  Time is far more precious than money.  As Jim Rohn repeatedly said, "You can always get more money but you can't get more time".  Time is life.

We are each of us given a very limited supply of time.  Some of us don't get much time at all. My brother died when he was 14 years old.  He didn't get much time - yet it seems to me he'd made the most of the time he had.

Imagine if we began to track our time in the way that some of us track our money.  How much of it would be spent on "junk"?  Just as we can look at our financial expenditure and regret spending so much on fast food that month we could look at our time and lament "time lost" or apparently "wasted" in situations we found depressing, wasteful, meaningless or generally non-productive.

Money is not our life.  Time is the fabric of our life. Should we budget our time like money? I think so.  Just as we seek value for money shouldn't we also seek value for our time?

Some of the things I would really like to spend time on include:

-Being with the people I love.
-Being with our pets and animals in general.
-Gardening.
-Designing and making jewellery.
-Craftwork.
-Photography.
-Writing.
-Reading books with real substance.
-Cooking fresh, nutritious, delicious meals.
-Meditation, deep breathing.
-Exercise.
-Enjoying Nature.

Some of the things I'd like to spend less or no time on include:

-Being online (unless it's for a productive purpose).
-Being in the presence of negative, toxic people.
-Watching television (which I rarely do).
-Procrastinating.
-Being disorganized.

Time management - it sounds to me a bit like herding cats - easier said than done but truthfully I believe it's a skill we all should have.  Time is money? No, time is your life, your very life.  Be careful how you spend it.

How The Worst Moments In Our Life Make Us Who We Are

When someone can take you from laughter to tears in seconds and back again – you know you are beholding genius and in this case that brilliant man is Andrew Solomon, writer and lecturer on psychology, the arts and more.   

Do yourself a favour - like Leonardo below - and listen to one of his finest speeches. 

 

Take Up The Battle - Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou – what a marvellous and inspiring woman she was.  Many of the things she has said or written have touched me deeply.  This is one of my favourites.

"So try to live your life in a way
 that you will not regret years
of useless virtue and inertia
and timidity.

Take up the battle.               

Take it up.
It’s yours.
This is your life.
This is your world.

I’ll be leaving it long before you
under the ordinary set of circumstances.
You make your own choices.
You can decide life isn’t worth living
but that would the worst thing that you can do. How do you know?

So far. Try it. See.

So pick it up.
Pick up the battle
and make it a better world.
Just where you are.
Yes.
And it can be better.
And it must be better.
But it is up to us.”