What have you done with your time?

Rescue dogs bring balance, happiness, gratitude. (photo: adamaecompton)

Humans are historical. If you do not view yourself and others as historical beings, you are bound to be hard on someone… demanding instant perfection in this “vacuum of today” (thanks for that quote to Hank’s mommy). Focusing in on only moments and not stepping back and looking at the big, historical picture means that there is no allowance of time for maturation, for learning from mistakes, for healing, and, well, for being.

“Oh, dog!” you say.

“Yes, dog!” I say.

But don’t worry– I’m not advocating dwelling in the past or worring about the future. I’m talking about seeing life as a tapestry of moments, rather than a linear “thing” that just goes from one moment to another moment with no real purpose or sense of something more grand.

White Sands National Monument, NM (photo: adamaecompton) Makes me wonder if time is like a meandering line or like piles of sand -- or are moments of time more like a grain of sand, connected to all the other grains?

Don’t treat “being in the moment” as if it were a schizophrenic zen happening. When life gives you moments, like fibers, weave them into a tapestry. Don’t just sit there on autopilot and make piles of thread. It’s so easy to get fixated on individual moments and end-up with disrelated piles of life’s fibers, disassociating one moment from the next. Life is too connected to have separate piles of moments called “work life” and “home life” and “social life” and “church life” and so on and so forth.

And it’s not very linear either. Many humans tend to take the fibres of time and line them out, moment after moment, one after another, as an endless series leading… where?

To the moon? Mars? Why is humanity fascinated with traveling as far as it can in a straight line? What’s wrong with recognizing the reflective, the cyclical, the seasonal aspects of time?

Life is an interweaving of the threads… of the moments of life. Each moment is connected to each moment, is influenced by each moment, and is built on each moment.  Nothing has to be finished today. It just can’t be.

Us dogs want to know, humans, what have you done with your time? Is it “escaping” you… like escape velocity that takes moments away from you and shoots them to the moon? Is it running over you? Piling up around you? Perhaps its time to take back time.

Imperfection is what makes me so doggone wonderful.

Maintaining a historical focus on life means that you recognize life isn’t finished, and it means that you can breathe a bit easier and have some room to grow and to learn. Nothing has to be perfect today. Take it from a three-legged dog.