It seems as that whenever I get together with friends a quick walk down memory lane is in order. Now with the beauty of Timehop, seeing everything that happened a year ago, two years ago, five years ago provides a memory lane walk everyday. That can be nostalgic, but also very scary.
It isn’t just the looking back that can be scary, but the looking forward, too. I’m getting ready to close another chapter of my life – graduate school and after that comes a chapter of uncertainty. I’ll be starting a career, but where I’ll plant the seed for that tree to grow is still a little cloudy for me. Whether I like it or not, I know I can’t sit by idly while time passes me by.
When I look back at how long its been since I was an undergrad, it boggles my mind. Back then I would always say that I couldn’t believe I had been out of high school for X number of years. Now it seems that new experiences have become the dreaded nostalgic moment. “I can’t believe it’s been this long since I was that,” or “I can’t believe its been this many years since I was doing that.” Now I’ll soon be telling myself that I can’t believe how long its been since I was in graduate school.
And so the cycle keeps going.
For me as I begin a new chapter, it can get often tricky to keep your footing. When you start a new chapter, there’s levels of uncertainty, doubt and fear and you can almost never be fully prepared for what new thing you are about to take on. Yes, it will be my first time being independent of school and with that brings a scary sense that I’m ill-prepared mainly because I lack the experience of that environment. But I tell myself, I will learn as I keep on going. I just need to keep moving.
But what I have learned most from how quick time can pass you by, it is that you need to move with it. You need not fear or doubts slow you down in any way. You really need to seize the day and make the most of every single thing you are given. It sounds cliché, but it is true. If we stop for even a second, that second can create itself into minutes, hours, weeks and years of just falling into a routine that will jar us when we realize it has been X number of years since…
We just need to remember that, yes, time is always ticking. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fill each second we are given with experiences that thrill and excite us, moments that teach us and impact us, people that love us, places that amaze us, and opportunities to better us.
So time will keep flying, and while it will be scary to think of ourselves becoming ever more distant from what we have known and what we have felt comfortable in, we are just getting closer to where we are supposed to be, doing what we should be doing and becoming the person we were destined to be.
The next time you look back and are shocked by the years its been since high school, or college, or since your first crappy job, or that deep heartbreak, or the loss of that loved one, or since you married the love of your life, or since you held your child in your arms, just ask yourself how you have spent your time. Time won’t wait for you – so don’t wait for it! Get living!
Gorc Meets World 
Hi Matt, I read “Time Flies” and it was part of a series of happenstances for me. The past few days the lesson which is being reinforced involves some of what you expressed in the following sentences…
“But what I have learned most from how quick time can pass you by, it is that you need to move with it. You need not (let) fear or doubts slow you down in any way. You really need to seize the day and make the most of every single thing you are given.”
See, I am secure because i understand that the blurry me of today will be the focused self i cast off tomorrow… but the piece i was missing was to embrace ALL the details of the plot – as you say, “make the most of every single thing you are given.”
Why haven’t I been able to do this?
Because i was believing that there were two powers at work, one for me and one against me.
See, because of this idea of two opposing powers – i was unable to focus on making the most of “EVERY single thing i am given” and instead having to be careful to try to separate the things i am being given in to two camps – for me and against me.
Perhaps the very idea that there could be something against me actually creates the symptoms of “fear and doubt”.
Perhaps I need to make a decision here and now for ALL time. For ALL my past selves and future selves… . That there is only One Power and it is Absolutely Good, it is for me, and that there is none against me. This decision eliminates the possibility of an enemy. So this decision eliminates the symptoms of fear and doubt.
So now I can embrace EVERY single thing given me…like you said.., and know that my future self , while still a mystery, will at minimum be absolutely good.
Brian,
Thank you so much for reading! I have to say that I am a huge believer in the saying that everything happens for a reason – the beautiful, the good, the bad and the ugly. Sometimes we feel there is something working against us. But at that time, we cannot be fully understanding of why everything happens the way it does. There’s a saying from Rainer Maria Rilke about loving the questions themselves, because at the current moment we cannot live the answer. So we must live the questions, until we find ourselves living the answers. One day it hits us and we are able to find messages in the messes we’ve been given, but also a deeper appreciation when things go so perfectly well for us. Yes, fear and doubt can be paralyzing, but that is what is truly working against us, preventing us from finding those messages and fulfilling the destiny of becoming our very best self. There is no doubt in my mind that where you are now is absolutely good and it will keep getting better. I hope you keep reading and you can find some more meaning in what I share!
-Matt
Thanks Matt. Great stuff. The ‘living in the question’ deal reminds me of the bible bit that says “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
You write well and with inspiration. I am glad this blog is “one of the things I made the best out of” while living a question… and an answer. Be well.