It’s About Time
As the song goes, for everything there is a season; a time for every purpose. For living, for dying and yes, for grieving, and as I slowly emerge from this time, I move into a new time of my life. What do I want to make of it. I actually had to remind myself of why I started this blog in the first place — my quest to live a very long life in a happy, vibrant way.
How will I use my time for the rest of my life. What an interesting concept time is: we use it, we lose it and often abuse it. But it always seems to be slipping away from us. So when a friend presented me with the book entitled: 4,000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals, “ I was intrigued. Author Oliver Burkeman surmises the average life span to be the mid-80’s and therefore one has about 4,000 weeks of living. With my aspiration of 120 years, that would be about 6,240. And now, at the age of 75, I have about 3,275 more weeks to go.
We’ve probably all speculated on what we would do if we knew we had a limited time left. Well, after all don’t we ? And Burkeman suggests that we need to “let go of the limit-defying fantasy of getting it all done and instead focus on doing a few things that count.”
There was a time when I’d fret incessantly about all the time that had passed and what little I had to show for it. In my worst moments I’d tell myself there wasn’t time to do all the things I really wanted to do, so why even try. Perhaps a better approach is to say “it is what it is.” Count my blessings, which are many. Know that I’m just fine where I am as long as I keep moving, keep learning and don’t fret about what isn’t.
The other suggestion Burkeman made was to accept the idea of “finitude.” Like it or not, our lives are inevitably full of activities that we’re doing for the last time. In fact, he says, every moment of life is a last time. It arrives and then it’s gone; we’ll never do it again. And he reminded me that we must embrace the fact that we have limited time and limited control over that time. If we accept that reality, we actually accomplish more of what matters and feel more fulfilled about it. When I pondered that I initially got very sad, remembering all the “last times” Mike and I had in his final days. But in the recalling —through my tears — I also felt very fortunate that we shared those really good times.
In his book, Burkeman gives the reader a set of tools for living with more finitude. Things like: focus on what you’ve completed, not just on what’s left to complete. Or embrace boring and single-purpose technology. Seek out novelty in the mundane. And the one I really liked: Practice doing nothing.
As I read them, I recalled another poignant memory of Mike. It was a conversation my daughter had with him not long before he passed. She told him she was proud of him. This calm, often stoic and oh so humble man looked at her lovingly and said, “Thanks, I’m proud of me, too.” I can only think that Mike was looking back on his life, knowing full well it was nearing an end, accepting that verdict and was so totally at peace with what he had done with his life and its outcome. I really do think he lived it with “finitude.”
You were quite a man, Mike
