Making Time

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. – Albert Einstein

Modern American life eats up a lot of our time. I’m sure that with the invention of electric washing machines and telephones and automobiles and microwaves and computers and… stuff, there were people thinking, “Wow, this is going to give folks more time.”

So what happened? How did we use up the extra free time? What happened after Grandma didn’t have to scrub on a wash board and ring out the water with rollers before hanging up the clothes? What happened after a chicken dinner no longer meant catching the chicken and going through a disgusting process of preparation before it made it to the table? What happened when going somewhere no longer meant working with a horse? Or walking where we had to go? It really hasn’t been that long ago.

I think about such things because my life is really busy during the week. I try to preserve the weekends, but sometimes that gets bitten into as well. I’m always plotting and scheming how I will manage to get exercise and meditate and make things and write. Every now and then I have committed the mistake of openly voicing frustration over finding the time for those favored things. A polite and gracious person will say something like, “I completely understand. I pray you can work that out.” But there is another reply that used to affect me like the sound of fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. Maybe the whole purpose of this experience was just simply to teach me to stop grumbling. That reply is, “You have to make time.”

That one phrase used to unleash a gnashing little dragon inside of me and I had to use my most powerful techniques of self control to subdue the creature. I do try to steer away from people who use that kind of response technique, but when you work in a public service job you can’t always pick and choose the people with whom you spend the day.

The fact is, making time, in the conventional sense, really just means taking time from something you already do and devoting it elsewhere. If your responsibilities are such that making time for something extra will eat into something you aren’t willing or able to give up, or even trim, then you have a problem. A problem you might be inclined to grumble about, upon which someone who is overwhelmed with their own problems might overhear you and say, “Well, you just have to make time.”

So, what’s to be done? About the time issue, that is? People who teach the Law of Attraction would say that you have to stop focusing on what is dragging you down and concentrate on how you want things to be. That takes a lot of mental fortitude, I must say, but I’m thinking maybe they are right. After a few unexpected and impromptu encounters with some “make-timers,” I decided that the universe was speaking to me through them. Sometimes a slap in the face snaps you out of trance better than a gentle nudge.

With recent budget cuts in the school system and the longstanding practice of assigning extra jobs to the librarian, my work has become increasingly more difficult to get finished within the allotted contracted time frame. (In other words, I do a lot of overtime.) Complaining and feeling sorry for one’s self definitely has no positive effect on a situation like that, except maybe to make one ill and get them some time off that way.

I decided to try the Law of Attraction philosophy here, thinking that maybe all it might do would be to settle me into just accepting ‘what is.’ And, that would have been okay with me. It’s not that LOA is something new to my system of thinking. It's just that I never thought about using it in this particular way.

I started repeating the affirmation, “I have more than enough time for all of my responsibilities and for myself.” Most recently I began incorporating subtle action* into my routine. I’ve teeter-tottered back and forth so much between despondency and my positive affirmations for the past couple of years that I’m sure the universe has been confused. But, in the past couple of weeks there appeared a small glimmer of hope, so unbelievably unexpected that I could not have imagined it. Three of my greatest difficulties at work have been affected. One is gone completely, the other is now changing, and the third is approaching change. I can now see the universe making time for me.

I’m quite sure that the people who ventured to tell me I just need to “make time” were not in any way referring to using the Law of Attraction, but they were unwittingly speaking to me from a higher place. I just had to figure it out.

I have indeed discovered the secret to making time.

Namasté

*subtle action is a term created by Dr. Deepak Chopra to describe his method of using LOA

Hobby-horses

People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me. – S. Kierkegaard

Long ago, I was assigned to read a book in college called Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne. One of the major discussion points about that story was Sterne’s use of the “hobby-horse” to describe a private obsession someone might have about which they tend to go on and on in a conversation. I believe, if memory serves me, that the characters in the book may have had only one hobby-horse each, perhaps to simplify the issue. Sterne was greatly influenced by the works of John Locke, who believed that every person lives in his or her own little world, communicating and interpreting everything based on their own thought obsessions. He saw this as why people having conversations frequently feel misunderstood, given they are talking about something from two totally different perspectives. I think he also attempted to explain why people get so offended in personal debates, how they think their hobby-horse is being insulted or attacked when it hasn’t even being considered. In Tristram Shandy, hobby-horses tend to give people something to focus on in order to keep from looking at themselves. They might even begin to see it as themselves.
I didn’t really care for the story itself, but the idea of the hobby-horse stuck with me all these years. I was reminded of it yesterday.

I was having a pleasant discussion with a family member whom I love dearly, and whom I consider my most treasured friend. We can have spirited debates and always come away still devoted to each other, which we have been doing since I was a child. One of the wonderful things about conversations with family members and old friends is that they teach you how to recognize when a hobby-horse has entered the room. There is a feeling that takes over the conversation when one of those blasted things pokes its nose in. Personally, I think people have multiple hobby-horses and I think they ride different ones with different people.

My dear sister was somehow led to get on her medical hobby-horse. She knows a lot about and thinks a lot about diseases, medical procedures, and tests. She goes to doctors when she has a feeling that there is something wrong. There is nothing the matter with that, if it is what she chooses to do. I, personally, tend to try and diagnose myself and I use Reiki and positive affirmations, herbs, exercise, or whatever seems appropriate to rid myself of bothersome symptoms. I’ve rid myself of many problems in just that way.

I know that most of the world, faced with a jumpy feeling in the chest, or a severe pain in the shoulder or knee, would immediately make an appointment with a doctor. I don’t do that and I’m sure that a majority of the medical professionals out there would say that it’s an insane way to behave. I guess that’s why one of the hobby-horses people saddle up and ride hard around me is the “doctor” issue. I don’t mind really. I don’t argue or tell them that I think they are wrong – I wouldn’t dare! I just tell them I won’t go to a doctor unless I think I have to, and that’s that. The conversation ends until they decide to get on it again.

Now, I am trying to think, what are my hobby-horses? Do I have more than one and do I use them to stand in for who I am? Do I get on and ride whenever the opportunity arises? Do I ever find myself embroiled in some frustrating conversation because someone is riding their hobby-horse and I’m on mine and we just don’t understand each other at all? Seems like maybe the answer to that is yes, though not so often anymore.

I know that I’ve had times in my life when I’ve had thoughts about not being understood. It probably happens every day. Half the time people don’t understand simply because they aren’t listening – they’re busy thinking about what they want to say next. Truly, there are only a few instances when it is absolutely necessary to make people understand something, such as in cases of emergency, issues of planning, legal defense, instructional issues, and practical instances like that.

Maybe releasing the need to be understood is the key. Maybe if I don’t ever care to defend my point of view, if I don’t ever think to try and convince someone to believe the way I do, I can be rid of the hobby-horse forever.

How wonderfully good and free that feels to imagine that!

Who Am I?

There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labeled. - T.S.Eliot

I've never been fond of labeling when it comes to human beings - for many reasons. It's limiting, for one. It can be condemning, for another. But, what about when someone attempts to label you with something positive?
Most of us would like to accept the positive labels. It is in those situations that we feel our gracious actions are being noticed and acknowledged. We might even feel rewarded by it. If we have lately been especially aware of our shadow side, it might give us hope that we are just being hard on ourselves and that people don't see the shadow which we know is there. If people were used to seeing the shadow, it might mean that a change has been noticed and forgiveness is at hand. Whatever the case, positive labels are rarely rejected.

I was recently offered a heartwarming label, one that would definitely be how I would like to be seen. The friend who offered it took it farther and asked if I saw myself as he described. The question kind of took me aback. I couldn't bring myself to say yes. All the therapy books and speakers who have addressed self-esteem were screaming in my head! I simply replied, "Only God can say. I do my best and hope it is good."

As far as limitations go, if I were to be limited by a label, it would be a happy circumstance to be packaged up in [COMPASSIONATE] or [LOVING] or one of many other spiritual identities.

Alas, but it can only be my actions which are labeled, not me. I believe we are everything, all the "bad" and all the "good." It's what we choose to show the world that counts; it's what we choose to bring out into the open that inspires how we are thought of and how we think about ourselves. It's what we choose to develop that makes a difference in the world.

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I wrote earlier about the experience I had with past life regression. It caused me to want to know more about the concept of reincarnation. I read a good deal about it and I used what I read to come to my own conclusion. What I came to understand from that study, and the perspective that I work from in my life now, is that the task I am faced with here in the material world is to get myself closer to God than I was the last time I was between incarnations - the goal being to get close enough that I don't have to be born here again. My actions while I am here, those characteristics which inspire labels, are what make a difference in how much progress I make.

I know there is a lot of talk and writing about how we are God, and God is Love, and we are Love. I believe that, too. The whole thing, the whole system, is about helping us to discover that truth and know it innately.

I had a French teacher in college back in the late 1970's who was the first person I heard use the term, "metaphysical." Oh, I adored him and every word that came out of his mouth was magic, so I began to seek clarity on everything he mentioned. He spoke of "knowing" in a way that caused me to tax my infantile teenage brain. He said, "Ancient man knew things because he just knew them. He knew the cycle and pattern of the stars because it was a part of his awareness. Unlike us. We know most things because we are told."

Perhaps God wants us to "just know." That's why we have to come here and have those experiences which will help us to truly know what God is, what Love is.

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I think T.S. Eliot is right in saying there is "no point of view" that can separate real from ideal - at least no human or philosophical point of view. We can only work from our ideals and hold fast to them and trust that they are serving us well.

And if, in a moment of being human, we apply a label to someone or ourselves, let it be an ideal label - even if the label doesn't come from true "knowing." People seem to attempt to live up to those labels deliberately or haphazardly applied to them.

Labels for people, in my humble opinion, should always have a potential response of, "Thank You," even if only God can really know the truth.

Thank you, JX.

Namaste.