Originally posted on Facebook HERE
As we age I guess it’s just natural to start thinking more about time in relation to how much of it we really have left on this planet. I know, at least for me, when I was younger I never really worried or thought much about time. We kind of tend to think we’ll live forever, ya know? So we do stupid stuff, and I certainly came close to killing myself more than once when I was younger. Somehow I survived, though. And the older I get the more I start thinking about just exactly what are we, really? We’re not our bodies. We’re housed inside of bodies while we’re here on this planet, but the body is the packaging that contains us. And when the body dies… then what? Where do we go? Are we thoughts? Can you kill thoughts? I really don’t think we’re thoughts, either. We create thoughts, but that is not the essence of our being. We have the ability to control out thoughts and reactions, but if we get obsessed with something, our thoughts can control us. No, we are not our thoughts. Where did we come from? Did we exist before we showed up on earth? If so, how is it possible we have traits from our parents? I got music and work ethic from dad – numbers and love of reading from my mom. How is that possible if I existed before I got here? Is this all there is? Is life just what we know here on earth and when we die, that’s it? That’s a tough pill to swallow. Some people believe that whatever we do on our time on earth will determine what will happen to our souls for eternity. Also a tough one for me to believe. Can you kill spirit? Are we all somehow connected? We might never know the answers to these questions. We might feel very strongly one way or another, but we can never truly be 100% until we die. And none of us knows how much time we’ll have left. Does that create any sense of urgency for you? Because in the moments I have left I want to make a difference, a real, positive, lasting difference, in the lives of as many people as I can. I want to feel love, and joy, and gratitude every day as much as possible, even when things aren’t so great on the surface. I want to stay as healthy as possible and keep my body and mind right as long as I can. So I read, I write, I lift weights, I do yoga, I run, I meditate… every week. It helps. But one area I could work on is sleep. My mind is constantly racing with everything I have to do, with the day and week ahead, and a job that has constant serious demands on my time and situations that stick in my head whether I’m at work or not… so I maybe average 5hrs of sleep per night? Unless we’re on vacation when I often get a steady 8hrs a night. Our mind influences our body. Our body can influence our mind, too. If we have a brain injury we can become someone totally different, I’ve unfortunately seen that happen. So… if we’re spiritual beings, how can the spirit be altered by the body? What happens there? Maybe we will never know the answers to any of this. Maybe death is it. That seems really crazy to me. We get like 100 years max and then we die? Maybe you can’t kill spirit, and we go forth from here to the next phase, whatever that is… maybe we already existed before we got to earth, but then – is there any birth? Is there any death? All we have is now. We have a limited amount of now’s in our lives. Let’s not waste them being frustrated and annoyed by every little thing. We need to focus on the things that are important to us: family, friends, relationships, work, music, art, writing, whatever that is for you. Any day could be our last, so let’s make them all count. Until the day we move on, now is all we have. Let’s fill our lives with the best now’s we can, we don’t know how many we get, so they’re all valuable. We don’t have now’s to waste. And let’s try to be kind to each other along the way, too.
