As I contemplate the past couple of months (detailed in my previous blog post), I see that I need to revisit some of my assumptions about time. Specifically my time.
I am a single woman with a relatively demanding job and a lot of the responsibility for the care of an elderly, pretty-much-housebound, parent. I have health issues requiring attention. I have a home requiring attention . I’m busy, I tell myself. I simply don’t have the time to bust out into the next level dream-wise. My day is just too bloody full.
And yet, when I was put in the position of needing to feed my cat Oliver four times a day, when I realized each feeding would take at least 45 minutes, I found I could come up with those three or so hours. Which means they were always there – I just didn’t see them.
I assumed I did not have time, and that assumption became my reality. I assumed I didn’t have time, and so I didn’t.
When I didn’t live by that assumption anymore, when I said “I will make this work because I have no choice”, then the time was there. Those hours were sitting like puppies at the pound, just waiting for me to notice them. When I changed my assumption, they came out to play.
This tells me that, to a certain extent, you have as much time as you assume you do.
That being said, there are limits. Not even for love can you create another hour in the day. We must work within the borders of reality – there really are only 24 hours. Also we must work within our own physical and mental limitations. When I tried to push it and increase Oliver’s feedings to five a day instead of four, I really ran into problems. I had gone beyond my limits and there wasn’t enough time in the day to compensate for it. Still, I found a big pocket of time I didn’t know I had.
I’ve not done many things because I didn’t feel like I had the time. But did I really not have time? Or was I just making assumptions, and those assumptions become my reality?
The skill to use time productively is one I’ve been struggling with for years. But seeing how much of it I’ve let go, seeing how I can make use of it, that it is within the realm of possibility, is probably one of the most useful things I can take with me into the future. I just need to make up my mind.
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