Taking off your watch.

Today I cannot stop thinking about how ungrateful we have become.

I got up extra early today so as to give myself enough time to look especially fly for my trip to Springfield tonight. (I don't know if you know this, but Springfield sort of expects all of its visitors to come looking sexy.) I have class at 9:00 in the AM, so I got up at 7:30. As I was damaging my blonde locks by way of heat, I realized I had probably given myself too much time to get ready. My first reaction was "well shoot, I could have slept longer." As soon as I let myself think that I realized that, if anything, I should be happy that I will have a few extra minutes to eat breakfast or just relax.

I got to school only to find out that my teacher wasn't going to be able to make it. Again, the initial response that ensued was one of frustration. I almost failed to recognize that I was complaining about a blessing. All of a sudden I had an extra hour of my day to do whatever I wanted.

So, I spent the next two hours catching up on homework and reflecting on the very things about which I am typing. I go to my 11:00 class to, once again, be informed that class isn't happening today.

In other words I have been awake for 4 hours for nothing, right? SO wrong. This is a problem we have today. We're always talking about wasted time. Somehow we've gotten into this mindset that if we're not doing something then we are wasting time. Even if we are doing something, in order to really make our time "worth it" we have to be doing something else too, we're the generation of multi-taskers. We can always be doing more and more to reach these goals we have. It's always about getting something done. What happened to just enjoying life in the present? If we take a few minutes to stand outside or just take a few breaths, we're accused of not using our time wisely and waiting in line is this huge inconvenience that gets in the way of doing important things.

Well I say sometimes doing nothing is important. I say life is not about managing your time just right so that at the end of your life you can have perfected a list of skills and climbed higher than a list of people and been awarded a list of titles and positions that really just meant you were getting paid more to be home less. I say we should think less about where we're trying to go, and focus on how we're getting there. I say that we should see waiting in line as an opportunity to be alone with our thoughts, or prayers, or day dreams. I say that we should relish in canceled meetings and extra time in the morning to praise God for the breath in our lungs and the pillow under our heads. I say we should stop caring so much about these tight schedules that lock us down and realize that every minute is a blessing.

This life is a gift for which we should be grateful. The weddings and graduations and promotions are gifts, but so are the car trips and elevator rides and the five minutes early that you got off work. How rude is it to write off some of these gifts as a waste? There will inevitably be times in our lives when we are forced to do things that seem trivial and lacking any conceivable merit, but it is still on us to decide if that time is wasted. Find some reason to make every day count for something. Walk away from everything feeling like it was worth something.

What's the point in coming out of something exactly as you went in? Let things change you for the better. Learn something new. Give everything a reason to be remembered.

As for me, I am grateful for these few hours to be able to manifest my thoughts for the first time in weeks and create something. I hope you have an exceptional weekend, whoever you are.