“Where has the time gone?”

An expression I am so exhausted of hearing. We spend so much time working, doing chores, griping about what we want—just trying to have the perfect everything: the perfect home, family, car, body, job.

We lose sight of all that we really have, of all of the blessings that are graciously ever present in our lives.

We should take time each day to do what makes our souls sing, whether it is spending time in nature, writing, reading, enjoying your children, your lover, your family and friends, gardening, producing music, yoga.

All of these things should be enjoyed and entertained daily.

Replace griping with reading a book. Replace the countless minutes spent trying to find the perfect outfit with practicing your headstands.

We are all stuck on the daily grind. Hit snooze a few times. Rush to get ready and get out the door so we can rush to work.

At work we dream of being anywhere else. We then leave work to rush home to settle our selves on to our couch where we numb our brain watching mindless television shows and shove food down our throat without even being cognizant of what we have consumed.

There are so many things that we are missing. We miss the enjoyment of watching the sun rise and the sun set. Drinking our coffee in peace while contemplating all that we are grateful for each morning. Enjoying the company of your lover and not playing on some sort of social media where you forget that the most important kind of socialization is laying right beside you.

All we have is time. So let’s slow down and enjoy doing what we love.

There are 168 hours in a week. We have so much time! I actually calculated my hours on my busiest week of work. 20 hours of driving, 8 hours of sleep a night, and working about 68 hours. I still had 24 hours of free time in that crazy busy week—a whole day!

Think of all the singing my soul could do: yoga, painting, writing, cooking, getting crafty, practicing guitar, and spending time with my loves. I could do all that in a day for sure.

Work and providing for our families is very important, but we cannot let that be all we are composed of. We all have dreams and ambitions for our personal life.

As children most of us had some sort of after-school hobby that we were required to partake in and we were forced to practice that every day or every other day for an hour or two, whether we wanted to or not.

Moving into adulthood, we started working and cooking, simply providing for ourselves so that we can live. In this, we may have lost sight of doing what we love. We have lost a part of ourselves.

Let’s get that back! Let’s all make a conscious effort in making time to do these things.

We don’t want to grow old and wish that we had spent more time with our family, that we had learned to play the guitar, or learned to paint a mural.

Life should be lived to it’s fullest capacity- fully expressing all that we love. Let’s learn to love the life we live and fill it with what and who we love.

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Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Eddie Van W at Flickr