Do You Take/Make Time to Do What/Be With Who You Love?
Life is too short not to do what/be with who you love.
Not to be morbid – but you never know how long you have here.
Life in the meatsuits we each occupy is finite. These bodies have – ideally – about 80 years of active life.
That is, unfortunately, the ideal. The reality is that we might – for numerous reasons outside our control – have far less time.
In the past 6 months, I’ve lost 2 friends to cancer, know at least 2 others currently battling cancer and a relative we know we will lose to cancer soon.
This sucks on every level.
That’s one outside-your-control factor. You could also be hit by a car crossing a street, get sick with another illness, or be in the wrong place at the wrong time during a mass shooting, I don’t know the odds – but I do know that you can’t know when you will cease to be in this body and related consciousness.
I’m sorry if that’s depressing – that’s not my point. My point is this – knowing time is finite and limited, are you doing what you love? Are you spending time with those you love?
If not now – why not now? Why are we all so hell-bent on unimportant minutia over living here and now, and doing what we love/being with who we love?
Time is an illusion – but fleeting nonetheless
I recently read something that explained two notions of the function of time. Newtonian (based on the science of Sir Isaac Newton) and Einsteinian (based on the science of Albert Einstein). The former is linear – the latter is non-linear and fluid.
But the part that struck me most was the definition of Newtonian time as linear, independent of the observer – while Einsteinian is relative and dependent on the observer. Mechanical versus quantum.
Either way – time as we perceive it comes with limits. How much you get in this conscious awareness and current life experience is wickedly variable.
But no matter how you examine this – what you do with your time is wholly on you. You get to choose to spend time on things that matter – or things that don’t matter. It’s up to you to decide if what you do and who you do it with is worthwhile.
Nobody but you can determine how, where, or why to spend time doing things, being with people, etc.
For example – you can spend hours texting your friends and having a one-dimensional conversation. Perhaps you can Zoom or get on a group call and have a two-dimensional conversion. Or you can spend time in three-dimensional conversation together around a fire, at a restaurant, or in some other format – in person.
How much time each takes is variable and circumstantial. Each has its place. But how you spend your time is your decision to make. If it’s one/with whom/what you love is also a choice wholly up to you.
And that’s why it’s important and good for your health, wellness, and wellbeing to find and/or create the time to do what you love and be with who you love.
What you love/who you love isn’t about romance
The word love is too often romanticized.
Love is too easily relegated to family and romantic partners. But love is so, so, so much more than that.
For example – I have some amazing friends I thoroughly enjoy spending time with. I love getting to hang out with them and enjoy their company. Thus, yes, I love them.
When it comes to what I do – I love telling stories. Writing and podcasting let me tell many stories I believe others might enjoy. And I love that I get to share that. Love, joy, and contentment all blended together.
I recently spent a weekend doing something I love – fencing. Three days of medieval fencing. One of those was an endurance tournament – 2 hours, outside in the glorious sunlight, with a 10-minute break in the middle (and pausing for water when needed). I love that I can do this, that it brings me intense joy to fight with swords and to spend time with people I love spending time with.
Sure, some obligations are not what you love or with who you love. But you have a choice to let those dominate your life – or to prioritize your time to make the most of it.
Mindfulness for the win
When you are actively consciously aware – mindful – you empower yourself. This is how you take control of the one thing you have absolute control over. What you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, and actions you do or don’t take.
Rote, routine, and distractions are sold to you as the One True Way on many levels. But the reality is – there IS no One True Way. What works for me might not work for you. And vice versa.
When you’re mindful, you’re breaking out of the habit, rote, and routine. You gain awareness of being distracted (specifically by things like email, social media, games, Netflix, and such). That opens the way for you to choose your attitude and life approach.
On the flexible cylinder between negativity and positivity, conscious awareness is how you choose which approach to take – which end of the extremes to face. When you desire to make/find more time for what you love and who you love, that’s positivity. That’s a choice to seek what makes you feel the most alive.
Please note – you will not always be in the ideal places you desire. Shit happens, circumstances and random happenstance occur, and you’ll be thrown curve balls.
When you practice being aware – mindful in the here and now – you can make choices to actively work to be with the people you love and do what you love. No, it won’t be all the time – there are obligations and necessary things you must do to earn money and care for others. But positivity versus negativity – and focus on being with who/doing what you love – is a choice you get to make.
Life is too short not to do what/be with who you love. Consider this when you find that you are unhappy or discontented.
Finding/marking time to do/be with who you love isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you have a finite time in this conscious existence in your body, you can choose to do what/be with who you love more frequently. Knowing that love is not the romanticized/limited notion for intimate or family relationships, you can work to spend more of your life doing things you love and being with people you love spending time with. More love, joy, and contentment all blended together.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
Lastly, the better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can also open those around you to their empowerment.
To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-eighty-sixth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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