Time. When we are doing something we love, we want time to stand still. We want to soak in every minute. We relish the moments, the hours, the days, the weeks. We do not want to think of the end. We want to be more present to what is here now.
Many of us enjoy anticipation, particularly of a beginning or a celebration. The start of a vacation or a new job, a birthday, a holiday, a graduation.
But, when we are in a challenging time, we often feel the weight of minutes, hours, weeks, months. Time drags on. Time is not a friend. The time itself can feel like a challenge.
We want to know how long it will last. How long will I be struggling? How long will it be before I smile again? When will I be done with this phase of my life? When will this end? Please may it be over, and may it have a happy ending.
When we are in a challenging time, we are often not present to the present. We look forward to the end, an end we cannot predict.
We can push against the hard time finding it unbearable.
We stress over the slowness of this in-between time.
It would be a relief to know that the hard times won’t last forever. It would be motivating to know that the challenging time will end well. That there is light at the end of the tunnel. Gold at the end of the rainstorms.
What if this challenging time was a gift?
What if this in-between time when you are not fully occupied is a gift. This time of still figuring it out, still finding your way, still making connections, still pursuing and considering, still learning and polishing, still creating, still in process, still trying …
What if the not fully occupied time is a gift?
The not fully occupied time is very much YOUR time. It’s a time when you probably have more choice about how you spend your time. When no one else is directing your day or reviewing your activities, you have a lot fo choices about what you’ll do with this very precious gift of time. Your time.
So ask yourself, what if this time right now was a gift?
- What will you learn?
- How can you grow?
- Who do you want to meet?
- What muscles can you develop, whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual?
- What could you create?
- What can you let go of?
- What can you polish and hone?
- How can you find more joy?
In an effort to claim my time, I often give myself an imaginary endpoint of a month or three months and then ask, three months from now, what do I want to celebrate? That helps me look at the in-between time with intention and choose to create gifts for myself.
Right now is all we have. This time right now is a gift. To think of this time as hard is to give up on the gifts we have right in front of us and those we can create or discover.
As we end 2022, may you find joy in the here and now. May you consider the gifts you’d like to celebrate in the next year. May you remember how this time and times of in-between can be a gift and take advantage of the choices you have.