Megan Long

My favorite thing about life is this beautiful and mysterious dimension of time that we all encompass in our daily lives. The reason I love the topic of time so much is because it’s like the common denominator in all of humanity. There are no exceptions. No one gets an advantage over someone else as long as we are alive when it comes to quantity, now I understand that the quality of the time we have is different due to certain things that happen in life, but that’s another can of worms. Anyways, back to where I’m headed with the dimension of time. If we just imagine for a second a long rope spanning from one side of this room to the other. The rope represents all of human history, all of the lives that have ever been lived and that are going to be lived in the future. Imagine lining up our lives on this rope as a representation of human history. Our individual life is really just a piece of sand in the grand comparison to all of the other lives on that rope. It’s mind blowing and intriguing to me. We all wake up with 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year. Although tomorrow is never promised, the beautiful aspect of time is that it yields opportunity. There are only two days of the year that nothing can be done: yesterday and tomorrow. This morning, I woke up with 24 brand new hours before me. I vowed to myself to live fully in each moment, be intentional, do something to make the day count, and to look at all beings through eyes of compassion. Each of us wake up with those same hours to use at our discretion and to see life through whatever lens we so choose. The opportunity to live abundantly is so beautiful to me. On the other hand, time is mysterious. It doesn’t slow down nor speed up for anyone or anything. The clock never stops ticking. Nothing lasts forever, good or bad. What is so intriguing in my mind is when I meet someone new and I’m getting to know them as a person, the constant question going through the back of my mind is: How do you spend your 24 hours? How do you allocate your time, energy, and intentions? Personally, I want to be remembered for something when my existence comes to an end. I think we all do. The way in which we do that is up to our discretion. My deepest desire is to leave at least a tiny footprint on this world when I’m gone. I want to be remembered for my infectious positivity, enthusiasm, and compassion. How will I accomplish that desire? By living it out, day by day. Time is so mysterious because if you’re not careful, it can slip right through your fingers. You know you always hear people say, “Where has the time gone? Or they just grow up too fast”. Well, going back to time being a constant, it’s not any faster nor slower than it was back in the 20’s or 30’s. It’s just the same actually. It’s not like technology, where innovation makes it better and more efficient. Time is untouchable, resistant to innovation, resistant to change. Happiness hides in life’s small details. If you’re not looking, it becomes invisible. I often think of the future and put myself into my 60 year old shoes and my future self asks my current self, “what was life like when you were 22 years old? What were you doing? What mountains were you facing? What brought you joy in life?” Those questions motivate me to journal. One of the hobbies I listed earlier. When life seems to be going so fast, things start to build up, and there’s just so much going on, I consciously stop. I take time to sit down and get out my journal and write to my future self. That way when I’m old and lonely I will have something to read and remind myself of what my life was like when I was in my early 20’s. I’m sure my mountains will seem like mole hills when I’m older, but it will be fascinating to read about how I spent my 24 hours each day. What consumed me, where my intentions and focus were at? How I found happiness in each day. In a way, I am striving to live a life now that will make my future self proud. My future self believes in my current self, and motivates me to be my best in everything that I do, allow myself a learning curve when entering new areas of life, and to pick myself up when I fall down. I’m not your typical millennial. My brain is wired differently. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era. I truly missed out on the simple life. Back in the old days when there were no cell phones, people grew their own food out of the garden, children played outside with each other and used their imaginations to pass time, people fell in love by fate, not by tinder nor dating apps. Those days were so wholesome. I realize those days required hard work in harvesting crops, making dinner from scratch, having to ask around where your friends or family members were versus sending them a text or looking at their location on the phone. I get the convenience factor of technology and the world we live in, it’s all about more for less and the NOW factor, but in my mind convenience comes at the cost of wholesomeness. Don’t get me wrong, technology is great. There’s a time and place for it. For example, in the medical industry, technology has saved many lives, and I’m thankful for that. I’m talking about the lack of rich communication with my generation. Millennials not knowing how to give a proper hand shake and carry on a meaningful conversation – instead it’s just the surfacey routine, hi how are you I’m great how are you great alright, let me check twitter for some excitement in life. For me, excitement in life comes from deep, meaningful conversations with children, peers, and elders. Children offer me innocence and imagination in the heart, mind, and soul. My peers offer me support and relatedness. Elders offer me wisdom – to learn from their mistakes and triumphs. It’s those raw, crisp, candid moments of truly getting to know someone, their views, perspectives, and experiences that truly lead to an abundant, fulfilling life in my opinion. There is something to be learned from every single person. That’s the beauty of it. There’s 8 billion people in the world. That’s 8 billion different ways people live their 24 hours each day, which is 8 billion different decisions made, lessons learned, and wisdom to be shared. I encourage you to seize the moment, take a look around, ask yourself “what can I gain from today and what can I give to today?”