I wrote this post earlier this month (as you might guess from the title, right around the Daylight Savings Time change) but, for whatever reason, didn't post it. The feelings still apply, though, so I'm posting it now! Just some thoughts on the passage of time....
I can't believe how quickly this year has flown by. 2011 is waning fast and there's so much I have yet to accomplish! I've given myself plenty of excuses for not being as productive as I would like.... starting a new job with crazy hours being the most prominent on the list. Nonetheless, I feel like someone's been winding the clock forward since March, like Daylight Savings Time decided to skip ahead several months rather than just an hour. And here we are, falling back an hour again, Thanksgiving is around the corner, then Christmas, then 2012... but I get ahead of myself. Perhaps that is the problem. I feel as though I am always thinking in the future. What's on the docket for tomorrow's work day, or next week or next month? What are our plans for this weekend?? When's our next vacation???
There's certainly nothing wrong with planning ahead. In fact, it's really a very important skill (it can be monumentally important in preventing tardiness, for example). But, it can really mess with your head. We "modern" women tend to think in schedules of "5-year plans" and career paths and biological clocks. When did it all get so complicated? For the past 3 years (or perhaps longer), I have felt like something is always just ahead, something better than what's going on in the present. When, in reality, what's right in front of my nose is really what's most important. Matthew 6:34 comes to mind: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
We live in a world that seems to be turning faster by the day. Technology spurs an excelerated pace of life and, despite the preponderance of "social media" and persistent digital connection, we communicate and live our lives less genuinely because we are so concerned with the next big thing. It's not the technology that's bad (obviously it enables us to do some pretty incredible things), it's the mindset that goes along with it. The "I'm so worried about where I'm going to be in 6 months or 5 years that I forget how blessed I am to be living in today" mentality. It's a mindset of forgetting the blessings God has given us in this life, the relationships He puts us in and the everyday lessons He gives us the strength to experience. This is the important stuff. The world could end tomorrow, and where does our 5-year plan end up?
So, for today, it's about striking a balance. Planning with enough wisdom to be prepared for what may come, and enough faith that God will always provide and simultaneously living with the knowledge that He already has provided everything we need for this very second down to the last iota.
