Taking Stock

It’s so easy to get caught up in the flow of time, to let it carry us along, never fighting the current and never using it to our advantage, simply…existing. Before we know it days have gone by, then weeks, then months, then an entire year. We look back, trying to remember where the time went, but can only remember the highlights, good or bad, that help make up what is now the past. Entire stretches of our lives are blank to us, never to be recovered, and we shrug our shoulders and move on, perhaps regretful, perhaps determined to be more aware in the future.

Taking stock of my life is an exercise I am engaged in with tiring frequency these days. I say “tiring” because I have come to the conclusion that we humans are simply not equipped to be aware of every second of our cosmically short lives. The fluidity with which we move through the majority of our time on earth makes what we do remember all the sweeter, all the more important. Everyone resolves, at some point, to stop letting life pass them by. But isn’t that the nature of time? It moves completely independent of our wishes, our desires, our hopes, our dreams. It soldiers on, in a forward direction, deaf to our pleas for it to slow down, speed up, stop entirely. For all our technological advances, no one has yet figured out a way to control the rotation of the earth, to stop the changing of the seasons, to alter the flow of the universe.

So time passes, and our lives pass, and we are not always aware of it, and I really believe that’s how it’s meant to be. Constant life analysis is for philosophers, and while I do, in fact, have a degree in philosophy, I never planned on using it in quite so personal a manner. But, having said all that, such introspection has its place. Like when one is trying to rebuild one’s life. So, I found myself doing quite a bit of analyzing this week. A lot of it was tangible—walking around my house, contemplating new furniture placement, filling in the holes that having certain items removed left. Or going through boxes and bins, determining what I would like to keep with me when I eventually move elsewhere, what I’d like to donate, what might be better served in someone else’s hands. What do I need in terms of material comforts? What do I want?

In my current state of mind, taking the leap from the tangible to the intangible is more like stepping over a crack in a sidewalk. What do I need in terms of mental and emotional comforts? What do I want? These two questions are harder to answer, and far more important than determining how many serving spoons I’d like to keep in my kitchen drawer. I can’t say I have any answers to either question, but I know there are things I already have that fill those categories, and I am painfully aware that there are things lacking that I will eventually have to acknowledge.

The above two questions, I think, are the ones we should address when we determine to “be more aware” of the passage of time. How many hours pass that find us unhappy, malcontent, or apathetic? How many days pass that find us resigned to just making it through, hoping that the next day will somehow be better? When did we become passive participants in our own lives? Until we are aware of what we want and need, we have no hope of becoming whoever we’re truly meant to be, and we certainly can’t improve our situations. It’s a lesson I’ve had forcefully thrust upon me. I’m not saying anyone should become a philosopher—they’re not, as a rule, a happy lot—but if you ask yourself what you need and what you want and you either can’t answer or perhaps have too many unfulfilled answers, well, the next question to yourself might be: what am I waiting for?

Lesson of the Day: Knowing thyself doesn’t make the world go ‘round, but it might fill in some of the blanks!