Time. Whether you like to admit it or not, it’s what controls our whole lives. So what is it exactly? By definition, time is “the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.” Now, that might be a little hard to wrap your mind around at first, so let me sum it up for you. Time is how we measure every second of our lives. You might think of it as being the clock on your living room wall, the numbers displayed on your phone, or even when the sun rises and sets. These are all examples of time, but it goes much further than just physical occurrences we can see. I believe grasping the true concept of time can be extremely difficult; maybe even impossible. So why do we let something we can’t completely understand control our lives? Because it’s all we know.
There are three types of time-related occurrences that we generally like to focus our attention on. In fact, we spend the majority of our days thinking about two out of these three occurrences. I’m talking about the past, the present, and the future. The past and the future cause so much anguish and stress in our lives and we have absolutely no control over them. We wake up every morning and immediately anticipate the future that is to come, just as we continue to shame ourselves for mistakes we have made in the past. What good does this do to us? The past is not something to dwell on, and the future is not something to fear. Both of these occurrences are parts of our lives that only exist in our head. I know just as well as anyone else that the past is extremely hard to let go of, just as the future is extremely hard to ignore. What we need to realize is that we have a choice. We can live every day in an unfortunate time that simply does not exist, or we can thrive in the time that lies right in front of our eyes...the present.
Look around yourself. What do you see? Observe your surroundings; what you hear, smell, see, and feel. This is the present. This is the part of life that we can control -- to an extent. As I am writing this article, I can literally stop everything I am doing, and just breathe.
For the time being, I can let go of everything I am working toward or have ever achieved and just live in this particular moment. Now some of you are thinking, “Why the heck would you want to do that”? It’s easy to see why some would think like that. As I mentioned earlier, letting go can be extremely difficult to do. We work all our lives to obtain some type of control on our lives, and now I’m telling you to let all of it go. This is what so many of us fail to realize. We are never actually in control. We are essentially riding on a train that takes us wherever the tracks are going. You can choose where you want to move about in the cabin, but we cannot physically alter the path of this train. Every single one of us is on this train and we all have the same end destination. We’re not exactly sure where the train will end up or when it will end for that matter. So, once you have realized that you’re not the conductor of this train, it actually becomes fairly easy to let go.
The message I’m trying to deliver is not implying that you simply drop everything in life and go completely off the grid. What I’m trying to say is that we need to appreciate every second we experience. Now, you might be thinking, “How is some 21-year-old kid going to tell me how to live my life?” It’s true that I still have a lot of living to do, and have no way in shape or form figured out the meaning to life. However, I have single handedly experienced how the future can complete wreck you physically and emotionally. Once the realization finally dawned on me that I have no idea what the future holds for me, it scared the living crap out of me. However, going through this rough patch made me truly realize how beautiful every moment is that I am blessed to have. Let the past bring back all the joy that life has ever given you, and let the future be something to look forward to. Live in the here and now, and enjoy the train ride my friend!
