Tag Archives: celebrating life

A Few Things Through my Eyes – Stolen Time

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Lost time is never found again. – Benjamin Franklin

Once again I’ve been robbed.  Hard to believe how often this happens in my life.  No, I’m not talking about my personal possessions.  I’m talking about my time.  It seems that the more time I try to find, the quicker it is stolen.  Who is at fault for this?  Is society to blame?  My friends or my family.. are they the culprits?  Is it really my own fault?  Even if it is my own fault, am I really to blame?  Really?

Because we have so much eye candy and mind candy, spending so much time trying to pay the rent, all of this conspires to keep us from thinking too hard or taking action from that. Our time is stolen. So much of our daily life is stolen.  Lydia Lunch

So here is the question.  Do I sit and mourn that lost time?  Do I waste more time chastising myself or going around apologizing for all of the things I have missed and lost in my hurry to do other things?  Do I cry because I have missed out on relationships while trying to find a relationship?  What have I lost and what is there to gain by trying to recoup it?

How can I know that while sifting through emails, perusing facebook and various blogs or laughing at crazy little ridiculous photos, sayings or jokes that my time might be better spent studying my current subject or even calling my family and wishing them well?

My idea of something funny

My idea of something funny

How can I possibly be expected to rationalize that spending time with one friend will probably severely limit the time I can spend with another.  If I take one job and disregard a different opportunity will I be happy at that one job or spend forever regretting that decision and pining over how my life could have been?  Should I even stop and consider these things? If I did, what would I chose to do? How much time would I waste in that insane endeavor?

And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?  – Tillie Olsen

Is one food going to be better for me than another?  Is one word or one sentence going to be more important than another?  How do I know that the words I am learning to use right now in my class are going to help me later on?  Should I spend more time trying to figure out how I could have been more sensitive in a situation or how I should have been more direct?  How will stopping to look at a random person creating their own moment in time or piece of art change my life?  Will I regret not eating more desserts and drinking more wine?  Will not taking the time to stop, look and listen cause me to lose my inspiration, my momentum or place in a line?  If I do or don’t stop will it even matter?  Will I learn more and be more and have more if I go left instead of right? Or wait.. maybe I did go left when I should have gone right?  I should have stopped .. or should I have kept going?

New York
New York
New York
New York

I wish I could tell you that there was an answer to this question or even a point to me writing this.  Maybe I’m just currently wasting your time.  Or YOU are wasting your time by reading what I have written.  Before you start thinking I’m feeling sad about my life or where I am today I want to be very clear on this.  My own opinion is that nothing you do is truly wasted time as long as you can recognize what you need to be changing to make yourself happy and as long as you can keep moving ahead.  I have recently been surrounded by some very sad, angry and confused individuals who do nothing but regret their actions.  They regret their lost youth and the time that has been lost doing whatever it is they were doing.  It’s been a challenge for me when I hear their stories.  When I look at them I see a person who is still young, still able to make changes and yet they describe themselves in a way that makes me imagine that in their minds this is what they are seeing:

I have very, very few regrets about the things I have done or the places I have gone and even if some of my decisions were bad ones, AND I’m positive that many probably were, I would not be here now doing the things I am doing if I had done anything differently.  Yes, I have had to go back and start over during some very challenging portions of my life.  I have had to change my mind and my attitude on several occasions in order to keep moving ahead and growing and understanding what exactly it was I was supposed to be doing. In my opinion, it is NEVER too late to learn a new attitude or a new trade or even just how to live with yourself.   I’m told I’m a little unrealistic when I say that I feel that everyone can do the same thing.  I truly believe that anyone can start over and that best time to do that is..NOW!!!

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.  – Steve Jobs

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it. – W. C. Fields

In Time (2011) Sci-Fi

  Henry Hamilton: How old are you? In real time?

  Will Salas: 28.

  Henry Hamilton: I’m 105.

  Will Salas: Good for you. You won’t see 106, you have too many more nights like tonight.

  Henry Hamilton: You are right. But the day comes when you’ve had enough. Your mind can be spent, even if your body’s not. We want to die. We need to.

  Will Salas: That’s your problem? You’ve been alive too long? You ever known anyone who’s died?

  Henry Hamilton: For a few to be immortal, many must die.

  Will Salas: What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  Henry Hamilton: You really don’t know, do you? Everyone can’t live forever. Where would we put them? Why do you think there are time zones? Why do you think taxes and prices go up the same day in the ghetto? The cost of living keeps rising to make sure people keep dying. How else could there be men with a million years while most live day to day? But the truth is… there’s more than enough. No one has to die before their time. If you had as much time as I have on that clock, what would you do with it?

  Will Salas: I’d stop watching it. I can tell you one thing. If I had all that time, I sure as hell wouldn’t waste it.

The Illusion of Time (Nova/Youtube)

Time. We waste it, save it, kill it, make it. The world runs on it. Yet ask physicists what time actually is, and the answer might shock you: They have no idea. Even more surprising, the deep sense we have of time passing from present to past may be nothing more than an illusion. How can our understanding of something so familiar be so wrong? In search of answers, Brian Greene takes us on the ultimate time-traveling adventure, hurtling 50 years into the future before stepping into a wormhole to travel back to the past. Along the way, he will reveal a new way of thinking about time in which moments past, present, and future—from the reign of T. rex to the birth of your great-great-grandchildren—exist all at once. This journey will bring us all the way back to the Big Bang, where physicists think the ultimate secrets of time may be hidden. You’ll never look at your wristwatch the same way again.

This post was inspired by the following articles and blogs

31 Days of Randomness- Personal Inspiration 6 – Celebrate life

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In continuation of my 31 days of randomness – Day 6.  Personal Inspiration – Celebrating life

This inspiration actually came from an idea I had years ago.  Before my mom passed away the one thing she said that really stayed in my head was that she did in fact make many mistakes but could not go back and change anything so she just decided to go on and live her life as fully and completely as she could.

After my mom died I proposed to some friends and some family members that I wanted to begin an annual “Just in case.. you aren’t there the next year” party and instead of having a somber memorial service we would celebrate our lives and triumphs while we were there to appreciate our accomplishments and each other.  Well…. no one liked the idea because they felt it was morbid and possibly could bring about bad luck.  I sort of gave up on the idea of an annual party but have been actively seeking ways to celebrate the life I have.

Recently I ran across the following obituary.  It reminded me of my “brilliant” idea of hosting annual “just in case” parties.

Val Patterson – Obituary

1953 – 2012

I was Born in Salt Lake City, March 27th 1953. I died of Throat Cancer on July 10th 2012. I went to six different grade schools, then to Churchill, Skyline and the U of U. I loved school, Salt Lake City, the mountains, Utah. I was a true Scientist. Electronics, chemistry, physics, auto mechanic, wood worker, artist, inventor, business man, ribald comedian, husband, brother, son, cat lover, cynic. I had a lot of fun. It was an honor for me to be friends with some truly great people. I thank you. I’ve had great joy living and playing with my dog, my cats and my parrot. But, the one special thing that made my spirit whole, is my long love and friendship with my remarkable wife, my beloved Mary Jane. I loved her more than I have words to express. Every moment spent with my Mary Jane was time spent wisely. Over time, I became one with her, inseparable, happy, fulfilled. I enjoyed one good life. Traveled to every place on earth that I ever wanted to go. Had every job that I wanted to have. Learned all that I wanted to learn. Fixed everything I wanted to fix. Eaten everything I wanted to eat. My life motto was: “Anything for a Laugh”. Other mottos were “If you can break it, I can fix it”, “Don’t apply for a job, create one”. I had three requirements for seeking a great job; 1 – All glory, 2 – Top pay, 3 – No work.

Now that I have gone to my reward, I have confessions and things I should now say. As it turns out, I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971. I could have left that unsaid, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Also, I really am NOT a PhD. What happened was that the day I went to pay off my college student loan at the U of U, the girl working there put my receipt into the wrong stack, and two weeks later, a PhD diploma came in the mail. I didn’t even graduate, I only had about 3 years of college credit. In fact, I never did even learn what the letters “PhD” even stood for. For all of the Electronic Engineers I have worked with, I’m sorry, but you have to admit my designs always worked very well, and were well engineered, and I always made you laugh at work. Now to that really mean Park Ranger; after all, it was me that rolled those rocks into your geyser and ruined it. I did notice a few years later that you did get Old Faithful working again. To Disneyland – you can now throw away that “Banned for Life” file you have on me, I’m not a problem anymore – and SeaWorld San Diego, too, if you read this.

To the gang: We grew up in the very best time to grow up in the history of America. The best music, muscle cars, cheap gas, fun kegs, buying a car for “a buck a year” – before Salt Lake got ruined by over population and Lake Powell was brand new. TV was boring back then, so we went outside and actually had lives. We always tried to have as much fun as possible without doing harm to anybody – we did a good job at that.

If you are trying to decide if you knew me, this might help… My father was RD “Dale” Patterson, older brother “Stan” Patterson, and sister “Bunny” who died in a terrible car wreck when she was a Junior at Skyline. My mom “Ona” and brother “Don” are still alive and well. In college I worked at Vaughns Conoco on 45th South and 29th East. Mary and I are the ones who worked in Saudi Arabia for 8 years when we were young. Mary Jane is now a Fitness Instructor at Golds on Van Winkle – you might be one of her students – see what a lucky guy I am? Yeah, no kidding.

My regret is that I felt invincible when young and smoked cigarettes when I knew they were bad for me. Now, to make it worse, I have robbed my beloved Mary Jane of a decade or more of the two of us growing old together and laughing at all the thousands of simple things that we have come to enjoy and fill our lives with such happy words and moments. My pain is enormous, but it pales in comparison to watching my wife feel my pain as she lovingly cares for and comforts me. I feel such the “thief” now – for stealing so much from her – there is no pill I can take to erase that pain.

If you knew me or not, dear reader, I am happy you got this far into my letter. I speak as a person who had a great life to look back on. My family is following my wishes that I not have a funeral or burial. If you knew me, remember me in your own way. If you want to live forever, then don’t stop breathing, like I did.

Though I do not believe that my “just in case” party idea will ever take off.  I do really try to embrace life and attempt things I never thought I would do.  Each thing I do actually inspires me to do more things that eventually inspire me to do more things.  My previous post “Extreme Simplicity” shows some of the things I have attempted and accomplished in the past couple of years.  I’m constantly looking for new ways to celebrate life and my personal inspiration today is to really write some ideas down and just do them.  Take some chances and do some things you never thought you would do.  You really never know where it might lead you.  Currently accepting ideas..

This all started from a random site I found called thenester.com.  Apparently there is a group of people who have committed to posting a topic a day for 31 days.  31 Dayers 2012
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