There’s a little pub I pass in my travels that has a chalk-board sign on the curb outside its door. On it, the proprietor writes jokes or pokes that make you smile. It gives the pub a friendly feel and gives passersby a grin.
Today the chalk board said—
The Bad News: Time Flies.
The Good News: You’re the Pilot.
That was a poke right to my ol’ cerebral cortex, I’ll tell you. It got me musing about how we experience time in our lives and about whether we really are the pilots.
I had a pretty big discussion with myself about that last part, and I decided it’s up to each of us to decide whether we’ll accept the role of pilot or leave it to others.
Think of your life as the craft that you sail to cross this span of time. As the pilot, you can choose to define how you will use your time. You can say that you’re dedicating it, or devoting it, or committing it.
You can say that you killed it, spent it, squandered, lavished, or invested it. You can label it good or bad. You get to frame it any way you choose. “Choose wisely, grasshopper,” as the Shaolin monk, Master Po, often said,
You can’t stop time’s current, but when you let yourself go with its flow, you can learn to let yourself float on it, like a feather on a stream.
And sometimes you can rise above it entirely, to a dimension where, yes, time exists, but only down there–in the physical world, where it’s part of the planet’s operating system.
It was designed that way on purpose, this experience of time. It came with the package; it’s part of the learning and fun. It gives us rest and it wakes us. It’s what makes life an adventure.
Time lets you experience things you’d never feel without it: pressure, anxiety, anticipation, suspense—countless feelings. It lets you plan and make appointments. It obeys a steady measure to help you coordinate with others, to track the miles, to remember the days.
The list of time’s advantages just goes on and on. Without time, there would be no tomorrows or yesterdays, no seasons, no waxing and waning moon.
And you are the pilot riding time’s stream. You get to make the decisions about how you want to navigate, how you want to respond to time’s stretches of turbulence and calm.
Sometimes it’s easy going and you can cruise on auto-pilot. But sometimes you want to take control, to make your own decisions. And sometimes, it’s best to call to the Tower for guidance and advice.
The important thing (especially if your auto-pilot is stuck) is frequently to remind yourself that you are the pilot of this craft. It’s your life.
May you have a week of excellent choices!
Warmly,
Susan