What can I say, this bench offers some really good advice for us all. Isn’t it lovely? Located in San Diego, USA, but it would be much appreciated in Amsterdam too and I’m sure all over the world.
We have yesterday. Yesterday is gone. We have tomorrow. Tomorrow isn’t here yet. And we have today. Today is all we’ve got. But are we going today or not today? That’s the question.
If you would stare at a clock and observe for five minutes how the seconds pass by, it appears to be an awful long time. And yet an entire year can pass by, leaving us wondering how on earth time can go that fast! The difference lies in your experience. Your experience of time is based on A) your awareness of it and B) the meaning you give to it. When you are unaware of time, time flies. When you are aware of time, time is eternal. Give it a positive meaning and it becomes pleasurable. Give it a negative meaning and it becomes dreadful. If you manage to be aware of time and give it a positive meaning, happiness will follow. In essence, you create time – it’s not the other way around. Your very existence, creates time for without you there wouldn’t be a time. At least not for you, in this life you live. So regardless of how you experience time; never forget that time is always on your side.
As a boy growing up in the 80’s, large sections of the daily news talked about the violent relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians. Now at the end of 2012, my kids grow up hearing about the same situation, the same parties, still fighting, both claiming their right to fight. I’m only a bystander. As I read the news I realize there’s nothing new about this news. I try to understand it, but I don’t. And I try to imagine what it must be like growing up as an Israeli or Palestinian kid, experiencing every day the horror that I only read about. I try to imagine what it must be like growing up in a world of violence, in a culture of retribution. I guess they too try to understand it, but that they too don’t. And the violence continues. This post is to express my profound wish that one day the Israelis and Palestinians will object to violence. That they not claim their right to fight, but their right for peace.
Take it easy. Don’t worry. Relax. At least try. Go out. And play. Or stay in. And play. At least try. Have fun. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy the moment. Every moment. Because it’s over before you know it.
CELEBRATION: this is the 100th focusNjoy insight! In little over one and a half year I’ve created and shared 100 visuals and stories, and I will continue to do so with great pleasure. This insight speaks for itself: we can live with restraint, in prisoned by fear thinking death is the worst case scenario. Or we live free from that fear and fully embrace the great adventure called life. Let’s choose for the latter because without a doubt our life will end, but before that happens let’s make sure that our life has begun! In the magnificent film ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, about a man who spends a great deal of his life in prison, one of the characters at some point says: “You either get busy dying or you get busy living”. To me that’s an inspirational quote because in a way it’s a choice we all have to make.
