Another year has come and gone, and another new year is here.
So what?
I never did get some of my projects slated for 2016 finished, and they’ll still be waiting on me when I get around to doing them. I’m sure there will be new projects added to that list, exacerbating the troubles with time that has been adding up, like interest, over the years.
We modern humans want to get a lot of things done — we have the best of intentions — but we fail to realize that there is only so much time and that none of us have as much of it as we want.
I’m not so sure we need it, either.
It does sound as if there’s a pessimistic haze coloring my attitude about time these days, but really, I’m tired of trying to add more hours to minutes we haven’t got, and more days to a calendar that seems fairly well fixed. After all, modern Homo sapiens (Latin for wise men) must have a way to gauge the Earth’s annual trip around the sun. There’s no stopping natural law.
So why fight it? We might as well relax a bit, let the pressure of getting things done waft into the winter sky like the coldness of our breath. Who really cares if my burgeoning sock drawer doesn’t get cleaned out? Who cares if I can’t get the cars into the garage?
I have a mile-long list of projects that I’d like to do, that I ought to do, and that I need to do, but only a privileged few come to fruition, while the rest will languish in a perpetual time warp, known as the procrastination bin.
When we don’t get things done, we can always blame it on procrastination. It’s an easy and ready scapegoat. It doesn’t get things done, nor does it make us look very industrious.
So what’s a guy to do?
I’ve looked online for help, but all I find are these lists from seemingly happy, cheerful people whose lives all fit into various slots they’ve organized for themselves. While this is a genuine and altruistic effort to help people like me, I’m not sure their advice will help.
The first item on one list says to “write everything down.” I’ve been writing things down for years, but all I get is more paper I that has to be filed away in a pile, or more computer files that need to be put somewhere other than the cloud, whatever that is.
It’s nice for others to say “don’t procrastinate,” but I already know that! Besides, I don’t procrastinate. I just don’t get everything done when I want. It’s time, I tell you, time.
Experts recommend that one should “keep only what one needs.” Well, I certainly don’t keep things I don’t need, though my wife might argue that point. The thing is, I never know when I may “need” something, so if I already have it, I don’t have to buy it. Finding it when I need it is another story.
Nowhere on this Top 10 list is there advice on how to stretch out our days arbitrarily, allowing us to make a dent into those ever-demanding “lists” the experts tell us to compile. No one can tell me where to push pause or rewind, to allow me to catch up. What’s the deal? Isn’t everything on the Internet?
It seems the more we push ahead, into this 21st century future, the more we fall behind. But, maybe that’s just me. After all, we boomers are beginning to get a bit crotchety in our advancing years, what with all of our gee-whiz technology, society’s sense of subjective reality, and a never-ending desire to re-invent the wheel.
It wears me out.
The cold air is seeping into my bones, perhaps souring my mood. If I’m lucky I’ll blink and spring flowers will be poking through the soft, moist ground, and sunshine will once again blanket my world. I’ll have to get busy on projects then, because there are still things on the 2015 list that I didn’t get done.
I mean the 2016 list. OMG, it was the 2015 list.
Time waits for no one.
By Bernie Schmitt
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