Madican's Meditations on Life

Some stats - The most important commodity in the world is time. How often do you consider how you make use of it and what you spend it on? I read an article recently that said if you live for the Biblical allowance of 70 years then you will have 613,200 hours in your life. Of those :-

 

• About 200,000 hours will be spent sleeping – personally I can get by with 5 hours a day and with another 5 at night I function just fine.
   

• Another 50,000 hours will be spent bathing, eating and on the loo - figure out your own percentages for these activities.
   

• Another 75,000 hours will be spent on domestic or gardening chores.
   

• A mere 40,000 will be used travelling from one place to another (or sitting on a train waiting for it to move).
   

• Approx. 175,000 will be spent at work.

 

That leaves roughly 70,000 hours left for you to play with. Not much when you think on it. So, do you really get the most out of these hours? Or do you have even fewer because your work life balance is a bit skew whiff and tends towards the 40-45 hour week rather the 35 or 36 you are paid to do? And what do you do with your time anyway? Do some people work longer because they don’t really enjoy (or perhaps even know how to enjoy) and appreciate their free time?

 

It is easy to come home after a long day, plonk yourself down in front of the telly and watch whatever is on. But why do we do this? Are we so tired from working long hours that we can’t be bothered to do anything else with our friends and family? If so, then change your work pattern and, more importantly, your work hours and by that I mean reduce them.

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It’s your life. No one else is going to live it for you so live it the way you want to. Because once time has gone nothing will bring it back.

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Time flies

 

Don’t let it slip through your fingers

 

Some suggestions – Pick a great composer like Mozart or Bizet, buy a cd of their greatest hits and listen to them - you might get interested enough to listen to their other works. Read a good book – “Pickwick Papers” is a good laugh for you and your kids to read together as is “Scoop” by Evelyn Waugh. Read the 1001 Nights especially the Tale of Ma’Aruf the Cobbler with your partner, “1984” is a classic, but heavy, “The Odyssey” is a great adventure – especially Richmond Lattimer’s translation. Buy a CD or DVD of some great comedians, Dave Allen, Bill Hicks and Chris Rock are all cracking laughs. Read a compilation of Romantic poetry. Go to a Comedy Club or take a trip to the theatre to see a Shakespeare play and really listen to the words. You’ll understand why he is held in such esteem across the English speaking world and why the Americans (who formed the Abridged Shakespeare Company) sold t-shirts that proclaimed “I love my Willy”. If you want a good film version then Mel Gibson’s “Hamlet” conveys all the witty humour in Hamlet along with his mad, suicidal tendencies. Listen to Prokofiev’s “Peter and the wolf” and whistle along to it. For philosophical serenity, read the “Meditations of Marcus Aurelius”.

 

You could take a day trip with your friends and family to the British Museum – choose just one section that you are interested in (the Egyptians or Greeks or Chinese) and concentrate on a couple of galleries. Or just wander around the Great Court surrounding the Reading Room and marvel at the geometric symmetry of the glass ceiling. Avoid getting “museum feet” by having a coffee after 90 minutes or less. Don’t read the Da Vinci Code, go with friends to see Leonardo’s actual works in the National Gallery and see for yourself why this man was considered to be a genius amongst geniuses. Take a trip to Dedham and see where Constable painted “The Haywain” and “Flatford Mill”.

 

You could watch Ben Kingsley’s “Gandhi” or Liza Minnelli in “Cabaret” or Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus”. Listen to John Lennon’s “Imagine” album or his greatest hits or The Beatles greatest hits. Look up the Tolpuddle Martyrs on the web and find out about their moving story, ditto the Pankhursts. For one of the most moving death scenes you’ll ever read, go to Plato’s “Last days of Socrates”. Buy a book of Great or Historic speeches and be stirred and inspired by the words of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” or Sojourner Truth “A’n’t I a woman?” or Nelson Mandela’s “Ideal for which I am prepared to die”.

 

We have all of human history literally at our finger tips these days and can access all of the great figures who ever lived, all those geniuses who have helped to move humanity forward. We have their works passed down to us to learn from and to appreciate and to enjoy. So, don’t waste your time on things like Big Brother, I’m A Celebrity or X-Factor. There can be good or incisive moments in these shows, but they are just that – moments. Moments among hours of dross. They only fritter away your time and are actually detrimental to you. They lower people’s standards. You may as well paint black paint over your eyes as watch most tv. Spend your time or rather invest your time not just in work, but in listening to, watching and learning from the great artists, thinkers and do-ers in history.

 

Work can be immensely satisfying and it is necessary to obtain money in order to live, but these other things I am talking about are what make life worth living. Discover why the classics are called the classics – because they have stood the test of time and have inspired and appealed to people not just in the generation in which they were written, but to subsequent generations. Use your time to pursue interests that will bring you and your family and friends real pleasure. You will reap rewards that you will be able to return to time and time again during your life. It’s an old cliché, but still true nevertheless, no one on their death bed ever wished they’d spent more time at the office. We only have so much time and it is counting down for each and every one of us. I am not being morbid or a scare-monger. No one knows when their individual end will come so make the most of your life and enjoy your time while you’re here and are still able to.

 

Well, time for me to end so let me leave you with a quote from an ancient Egyptian script:

 

“Be merry all your life. Toil no more than is required. Nor cut short the time allotted to pleasure. Don’t waste your time on daily chores beyond providing for your household. And when wealth has come, follow your heart. Wealth is no good if you’re glum.”

 

And who wants to be glum? So, to end on a positive note, see the pic below and an old joke…

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Beer and Stones

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A philosophy professor stood before his class and put a glass jar, some boxes and a 6 pack of beer in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up the jar and began to fill it with rocks from a box until he could fit no more in it. He asked his students if they thought that the jar was full. Every student agreed that the jar was full.

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The professor then picked up a box of small pebbles and poured them into the jar. The pebbles filled all of the openings in between the rocks. He asked the students if the jar was full. Once again, they agreed. The students laughed.

 

Now the teacher picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand filled in all of the empty space left between the rocks and pebbles. He asked the class again if the jar was full. The students agreed it was full.

 

The professor said "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks represent the important things. Your family, children, health, friends, and passions. If everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

 

The pebbles represent the other things in life that matter, such as your job, house and car. The sand is everything else. The small stuff. If you put the sand in first, there is no room for the pebbles or rocks.

 

The same goes for life. If you spend all of your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are most important. Pay attention to the important things in your life.

 

Enjoy time with family. Go to dinner with your spouse. Play games with your kids. There will ALWAYS be time to clean the house or take yourself shopping. Take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. The rest is just sand."

 

Then one of the students asked what the beer was for.

 

The professor smiled and said "Well I'm glad you asked.” He opened a can of beer and poured it into the jar. Of course, the beer filled up the space within the jar making the jar truly full.

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And then the tutor said “No matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a beer!”