How To Control Time

In the midst of a reconnection with an old school mate the other day, I was reminded of the quickening of time.  "I can't believe High School was already 10 years ago!", she said.  "I can't believe it has gone by so fast, where did the time go?"

The flight of time seems sensible when I really take the time to think about what feels timely to me: new sights, sounds, symbols, lessons, tasks, thoughts, challenges, places, people.  Newness.  All of these things challenge us, force us, to slow down & smell the roses.  Rose smelling is no longer an option but a necessity when we encounter unknown territory.

As children, we are engulfed with newness daily, the entire world is full of wonder and awe.  As aging adults, we typically settle into more and more routine that growing up often brings, and we see less and less newness everyday.  We often smell the roses less and less the older we get, because, well, lets face it- who has time to smell the roses when time is moving this fast? Before we know it we've been out of High School for 10 years and we don't know what happened.  We got into a routine, we studied the same subect at school for 4 years and drove the same way to work every morning.  To thrive at life, we made things simple, and once life becomes simple, it just simply passes us by.  Surely the key to a full and slow life is to simply keep smelling the roses.  In this simple act, wonder may be reinstilled, and we can re-learn how to let the simplicity of life be a thrill.

Change

If you read a life changing book, see a life changing movie, or have a life changing moment; you should be different.  I have always associated growth and new direction in ones life to typically be a good thing.  Yet, I hear so much nay saying when someone sees someone who has changed.  "Oh, that's not the same old Billy Bob I used to know, what happened to Billy Bob!?".

Maybe Billy Bob read a book, or saw a crack on the sidewalk one day, and realized something he had not yet realized, and he let that moment fundamentally change him.  Isn't that what we do in counseling?  Are we not looking for a fundamental lens shift?  A deeper understanding, that will hopefully stay with us, heal us, and lead us to new heights?  If we are all the same this year as we were 5 years ago,then I have to wonder if we are living life the way it is meant to be lived.