The Constraints of Time

Without the obligations of an academic program to which I must daily and weekly pay my dues (in the form of creative output), I am able to move on to other endeavors. So I have found myself spending equal parts of time pursuing new avenues in terms of a career path, catching up on long overdue projects placed on hold, from updating my home's electrical capacity to scanning and restoring old family photos as part of a new genealogy project my brother John and I are embarking on, to just enjoying the freedom of being able to sit and watch a good film, or old episodes of The Wire. Of course, with one box checked off life's to do list, that doesn't bring about total freedom. On the contrary. It just opens my eyes to the myriad of other obligations and nagging chores that I haven't gotten to yet.

It got me thinking about the constraints we place on ourselves to get things done. I must ask myself this question from time to time: has life become too complicated? For all of the modern "conveniences" that we have now at our fingertips, I sometimes long for the days when I really could relax and not have in the back of my mind the flurry of activity, knowing what awaits me on the other side of this idle time. As Thomas Wolfe so aptly put it, you can't go home again, and this phrase rings true in the decades that have passed since he first committed the notion to print, more now than ever.

How many times a day will I lament the fact that there are not enough hours in any given day to get done all of the things that I would like? Of course, time is a flexible commodity, and we spend it as we see fit. Our measurements and calculations of it are arbitrary in the grand scheme of things. At times when I find myself tearing my hair out for lack of time to complete my obligations, I try to weigh those things in the scope of the bigger picture. Which of these things that gives me such worry at this moment will be on my mind one year from now, or five years from now, or 10 or 20? Which will hold even a minute place of importance? It helps to have the perspective that often the things that we fret about most are very temporary.

And with that thought, it is time to get about my day, and begin checking off some items from that endless to do list.