Tag Archives: time

Unspoken expectations

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“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.”  ~Chris Williamson

We spend so much time living in the past. We beat ourselves up for what we did do, didn’t do, should have done. We build scenarios that never happened yet are fully imagined. And we play these scenarios in our mind as if they are real. Then we are helpless not to respond through thoughts and perseverations, again as if the scenarios were real.

Unspoken expectations build resentment, steal joy, and limit our presence in the present… Not because we are living in the past, but because we are living in the imagined outcomes of possibilities which never existed.

The past, real or imagined, limits our ability to truly be present now, unless we let go and focus on our presence in the present. Unless we leave our unspoken expectations behind.

A year and a half later

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I’ve had some time recently that I could have used better. It reminded me of something I shared a year-and-a-half ago, ‘If I had the time’.

I won’t reshare the whole post, but I’ll share the very powerful comic and quote I shared:

Here’s a great comic by @MrLovenstein:

And the quote by Author Julia Cameron:

“The “if I had time” lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born — without the luxury of time.”

And I ended the post with this,

“If only I had the time… would I use it? Would you? How convenient and comfortable is this lie? The reality is that if it’s important enough, there’s probably time for it, time we can find, time we can make, rather than making up excuses.”

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Discipline is hard. Good habits are hard. Being strong in one area of your life doesn’t automatically make you strong in another. People who smoke know it’s bad for them. People cheating on their diet still want to lose weight. Yet, in both these cases the people in question could be very competent and effective in other areas of their lives.

It’s a reality that in some areas of our lives, even when we have the time, it can still be really hard to do things we actually want to do.

If you could turn back time…

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If you could turn back time, what would you do differently? I try to live life without regrets. I do my best to think of ways to feel blessed with the choices I’ve made and the life I have lived.

Occasionally, I’ll wish that I travelled more, or that I chose to be a bit more adventurous… but then I wonder if that would have taken me down paths where I didn’t meet my wife, or my best friend, or if I wouldn’t have had my kids.

I don’t know how the road not taken would have diverted me from the life I have? And so I don’t want to turn back time, but instead I want to appreciate the time I have. And that’s why I think I’m going to retire at the end of the next school year.

More on this later, but I wanted to put that out in the universe. I’m not turning back time, but I’m looking to make the time I have left a little more special.

Very long day

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My flight was at 7am Toronto time. I got up at 4:15, which is 1:15am Vancouver time. It’s now 8:30pm and I’m back home watching a movie. Then my alarm just went off to remind me that I haven’t blogged today. Other than two fifteen minute naps, I’ve been up 19 hours today and I’m staying up until my wife gets home in about an hour.

Because a 5 hour flight wasn’t enough to fill my day, I also did the Coquitlam Crunch with my buddy after he got off work, and I came home from that and did a small workout. So I must admit that right now I feel the effects of being up for this long. The hot tub and shower definitely didn’t help to wake me up at all.

So, I’ll finish writing and turn my movie back on that I started much earlier today. I won’t be surprised if my wife finds me asleep with the tv on. Yes, the day has been, and still is, long… but it has also been good. My suitcase is unpacked, the pool and hot tub chemicals have been topped up, and the garden has been watered. It’s amazing what you can do in a 19+ hour day!

Officially counting down

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Report cards go out tomorrow and Friday is the last day with staff to end the school year… and I’m done! Yes, I’ll be in next week, and there’s a fair bit to clean up before it’s officially summer, but I’m feeling checked out.

Not much left in the gas tank.

It started in June, people asking, “So, are you counting down to summer yet?” I probably heard that question a good 10-12 times in the first three weeks of June, and I always responded with a version of ‘Not yet’. I was being honest, I am not really someone who counts down to big events until they are very, very close.

Well, ask me today and my response is, “Absolutely, I’m counting down!”

I’m ready for summer.

Time warp

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It’s hard to believe that we are at the end of the school year. As I reflect back the year seems to be a blur.

The older I get the greater time warps. Looking forward, future events can seem so far away, then looking back the same amount of time can seem like it was just yesterday. A week to wait for something can seem like forever, yet a month can fly by… even if that month included a week that felt like forever.

I often wonder if our brains get affected by our age, not just from a metabolic standpoint but from our perspective. To a 10 year old 5 years is half of a lifetime. To a 50 year old it’s just 10%. So now that I’m in my late 50’s, a year can fly by as a somewhat insignificant amount of time.

It just reminds me to appreciate each day. To find in each day a moment worth remembering, with reflecting on. Or at least a moment worth enjoying. Take away these moments and the days, weeks, and even years slip by… almost unnoticed.

We live in time warps, where the perception of time fluctuates. If we don’t want time to disappear on us, it’s up to us to spend time wisely, and meaningfully.

We need to create moments, not seize them, but rather savour them, find joy in them, and cherish them.

Empty nesters

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My youngest is off on an adventure for the next 3 and a half months, and so my wife and I will be on our own in our big house from now until the day I return to work after the summer. I have to say that it feels a bit weird after 25+ years. The longest we’ve gone before this with both kids out of the house has been about 5 weeks.

My daughter will return from the trip and be back with us. Our oldest might be coming back as well depending on the school she selects for her next degree. So, we aren’t really empty nesters yet, and may not be for a while yet… but this is a wonderful first test of what’s to come.

Frankly, I’m perfectly ok with this being for just a few months and I’m happy to have our adult daughters who don’t mind being under our roof. In this era of soaring rent and house prices I imagine we aren’t the only ones who will see our kids staying with, and returning to, their parents for a large part of their 20’s. And although it will be nice to see what empty nest life will be like, there is no rush to get there on a full time basis.

The next stage…

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Today marks a new era in my life. I’m going to my daughter’s friend’s wedding. This is the first one I’m attending from the next generation. While I don’t foresee my daughters getting married too soon, I recognize that after a long dry spell of not attending any weddings, this is something that will likely happen a bit more frequently in the coming years.

I’m reminded of my Firsts and Lasts post. This is a small first, it’s not my daughter getting married, but it’s a new era, a new stage in my life which I get to celebrate. And while I’ll have to wait a bit longer for one of my daughters to walk down the aisle, I see that this is the start of something new for my wife and I.

A Moment in Time

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In a way, we are all time travellers. None of us experience time in the same way. We can be engaged in the same activity but for one of us time flies by and for another time seems to slow down. Have you ever been in the company of someone having way more or less fun than you? Do you think your perspectives of time were the same?

What’s the difference between time well spent and time poorly wasted? What is the experience of time for someone bored versus someone excited? What’s the experience of time for someone with a severe tooth ache waiting for a root canal versus someone terrifyingly waiting in line for a scary roller coaster ride?

Ask a 90 year old where the time has gone and compare that to a school-aged child wishing they were older and more independent.

Are we spending our time well or wasting it away? Ask a person at the end of a shift, a person at the end of a holiday, and a person at the end of a life. No answer will be the same.

Are we experiencing time or are we just letting time lapse? Either way we distort time, we alter how we perceive it, we quite literally time travel. We don’t just travel through time, and we don’t just live in the present. We worry about the past, and fret about the future. We also let the past hold us back, and let fear of the future restrict us. Or inversely we let the past inspire us, and the possibilities of the future motivate us.

We are constantly time traveling, so much so that we can’t really define the present, for we are so seldom actually living in the moment. For ever single person this moment in time is a completely different experience of time.

We are all time travellers experiencing time in our own unique way.

Ferry travel time

Had a couple ferry rides over the last two days. We always get reservations now, ever since our kids were 1 and 3, both sick, and we missed a ferry because it was too full. The next 2 hours waiting were awful, with two sick kids, and an hour and a half ferry ride after the extra wait. So reservations became a ‘must’ for us.

I think about how much time we spend getting from one place to another. Even with a reservation, we need to get to the terminal a minimum of 30 minutes before departure. And then there’s the 45 minute drive to the ferry, and the drive on the other side to our final destination.

There is a lot of waiting around on ferry trips. We bumped into people on the way over and had some nice chats yesterday, but for the most part the travel time goes slow. Trips home seem to take forever, and unpacking the car is never fun.

I look forward to the days when cars can fly like in the Jetsons. I hope that this happens in my lifetime. Forget about taking a ferry where my car is corralled onto a crowded boat, and the drive getting off the ferry is always in heavy traffic. I want to just set the autopilot in my car and watch an in-flight movie. No arriving to a ferry terminal early, no lineups. No reservations. Just a car zooming above the Georgia Straight, which is too long for an affordable bridge.