The End of the Day (1/11/11)

Time, it’s the one commodity that each of us have and how we choose to spend it is as unique to the individual as the individual is to the populace. Like the money in our wallets, time is a limited commodity and often in short supply.

At an early age, due to a Catholic upbringing, I began to believe most things that impacted me positively were gifts, a belief I still have to this day. Gifts seemingly come in many different forms with varying degrees of impact. Some are fleeting and others seem to last a lifetime. While most gifts appear to be distributed randomly, some of us for example are given the gift of what society deems to be good looks, others are brilliant in mind and others the ability to have a profound effect on people whose lives they touch, time is the one gift given to us all.

Unfortunately I am not referring to the length of our lifetime. It seems all of us have lost a loved one whose time was cut short by illness or accident. I am referring to the rate at which we pass our time here. We all have sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour and twenty four hours in a day. This is a constant that applies to every one of us.

The older I get, the more I realize that there are things that siphon time away from me. Not much different from how unused electrical appliances drain electricity just because they are plugged in. When we are young and relatively concern free, every day is an adventure, every day is new and therefore memorable. As we get older, things start to get in the way of what we once enjoyed. Instead of life being an adventure it becomes mundane, overridden with tasks and lists of things that need to be done, instead of things we want to do. Our jobs become stressful and for whatever reason we seem to focus on the stress instead of the things that can affect our mood positively.

So how do we break free from the stress and drama that seems to be slung at us every day? For me the answer is easy, I fish! I love everything about fishing, the smell of the water, the breeze wafting through the trees, the way the sun reflects off the water during the day and the full moon casts shadows at night, the strike on a well placed fly, the way a spinner disappears suddenly as it is inhaled buy a previously unseen predator, the way my daughter holds my hand when we fish together, I love... well, you get the idea. Fishing to me is memorable. It breaks me free from the things that get in the way of living. Because if you, like me, believe this life is a gift then that’s kind of the point isn’t it?

Someday, before it is all said and done, I think there will be a moment for each of us when we look back on the life we lived and remember how we spent our time here. What we won’t remember are all the menial things that get in the way of truly living, the drama, the stress… the time stealers. To that end I have started asking myself, at the end of each day, “What did I do today that was memorable? Did I spend my time wisely?”

This simple change in my bedtime routine has had a profound effect on me. I find that I now focus on things that might have slipped through the cracks before. No longer do I stress over work. I perform my job to the best of my ability and the rest is just filler. My thoughts are more focused on being happy and positively affecting the lives of my family. Time has substance and is treasured rather than forgotten. Seemingly, life no longer gets in the way, rather it is lived, all from a simple change.

Time, it’s the one commodity that each of us have. Did you spend your time memorably today?