Is Time Only Out to Take From Us?
The infamous "they" are fond of saying so. And when I am hurrying about answering all the alerts and reading all the emails and planning all the things, it can certainly feel like it. On particularly busy days I can begin well enough. Coffee. Bible. Reading. Checking my plan for the day. But then a confusing tumult of activity begins.
I descend into the milieu only to surface hours later with a bunch of boxes checked off my to-do list, and little idea of what actually happened during my day.
I start my little bedtime rituals and think back over the hours that just flew by and find that I have no clear memories of them. Yes, we did homeschool lessons, ran errands, ate the meals, sent the emails.
I accomplished a lot, but where did it get me and was it worth it?
The Questions That Haunt Us
I know it was sunny. But were there puffy clouds? Wispy clouds? Clear skies? Were the birds singing as I walked to my car? What was the lady's name who helped me at the post office? Did my children find anything about our day funny, or beautiful, or sad? Did I?
When I have days like this, and I have too many of them although I am having fewer, I understand why they call time a thief.
Can We Make Time a Gift?
But there is a way to thwart him. Time doesn't have to be a thief. Time can be a gift. God made creation within time and called it good.
So how can we make time our ally instead of our enemy?
I have found three guidelines that help me turn time upside down, so that it becomes a gift instead of a thief.
No Multitasking
Enjoy the moments that you are in. Even the hard ones will often be bathed in beauty one day. But doing too many things at once robs us of even noticing the moments. This means that maybe—probably—you'll have to do fewer things. "They" (them again? Who asked them anyway?) told us we can do it all. But they lied. When I am answering email while helping my child navigate hurt feelings, how well will I do either? And what am I really teaching the young man standing in front of me looking for help? I cannot do it all, and so I must choose. The choices become easier when I step back and look at what will still matter in 20 years. Probably not that email.
And what's the easiest way to know what will matter? Put down the phone and look around. When my phone is in front of my face, how can I see the world around me?
Face Forward
When we talk to our friends, our spouses, our children, let them see our face, not the back of our phone. When we look others in the eye, our brains release dopamine. Dopamine is the same chemical that causes addiction to our phones.
But the dopamine earned by making eye contact is actually far more powerful and rewarding.
It might take a while to get used to, but soon you will crave it more than you will crave your screen. Certainly the time you spend engaging with your friends and family will transform into memories that will last through the years. When's the last time you could say that about a cat video?
Surround Yourself With Things That Are Real
Do you ever wonder why Grandma kept every Christmas ornament she ever had and we throw ours away after a couple of years when the new colors "trend"? I think a large part of it was that Grandma's ornaments were real and thus memorable. The latest Insta Trend on the other hand is fake and forgettable—and that makes it disposable. Why is that?
The Magic of Real Things
Every summer I take extra flowers and dry them. Then once autumn comes and my gardens are all sleeping until spring, I take the bundles of dried loveliness and craft them into beautiful wreaths, ornaments, and artwork. Working with the dried flowers reminds me of all the summer days I spent in the fields. For weeks our home smells like a summer meadow.
I could just buy a wreath made of plastic and have it delivered tomorrow, for $14.
Making a wreath on the other hand? That can take the better part of a day and uses far more than $14 in supplies.
But the wreaths that I make are more than a trendy piece of decor. When I walk close I can smell the summer meadow. I can almost hear the chirping birds and buzzing bees that fill the fields. I am reminded that yes, another summer is gone, but I am also gifted the memories of the good work that went into growing all the beauty. I am prompted to look ahead to the summer that is coming after this season of quiet and rest.
Real things have that magic. They connect us to the past and the future in ways that artificial mass-produced cannot.
The stories that an object represents don't even have to be our own in order to bring meaning. My husband recently brought home a cookie press that used to be used in his family's bakery.
I enjoy looking at it, not only because it is old and beautiful, but because it holds memories.
Not mine—it was taken out of use before I ever knew the bakery or any of the family. But that doesn't matter. I know it was used to make cookies for dozens of years and those cookies were part of hundreds of Christmas memories for untold numbers of people.
I may or may not ever use the press, but just looking at it reminds me:
The time I spend making cookies with my kids will create memories that will drift on down the years with them. They will take those memories into their own families as they craft traditions and make cookies and set tables and arrange flowers. In that way, time is not a thief. It is a gift.
Making Time a Gift
Chasing socials, chasing lists, chasing trends—these all make time a thief. They steal our days, our years, our lives. But accomplishing things one task at a time, surrounding ourselves with real people whom we really love and interacting with them face to face, filling our homes with things that are real and that connect us to the past, the present, and the future—that makes our days full of meaning and our lives worth living.
And that, my friend, is something that a $10 trend from Hobbies R Us can never do.
What's one way you're making time a gift instead of a thief this week?