Your Own Sweet Time

If you are like me, you tend to drive your­self by the clock. It is always time to… It is a pretty effi­cient way to live — if you are a machine. Insti­tu­tions have their demands. There is not much like­li­hood that your employer will tell you to, “just come in when­ever you feel like it” (though I had a sec­re­tary that did that for a while before I fired her). Time is money. Bills have to be paid. Dead­lines have to be met.
I was watch­ing a news clip yes­ter­day of an inter­view with Jessie Ven­tura, the for­mer pro­fes­sional wrestler and gov­er­nor of Min­nesota (same thing). He has really changed. His new mon­ster is not some big ugly guy in the ring with him, nor the vot­ers of his home state. His new mon­ster is time. He said that after fifty-five even money paled in com­par­i­son to the desire for time. He almost had a sense of panic in his voice.
Lin­ear time dom­i­nates our per­spec­tives. We feel like we are on a timed march to the end of the world. There is just enough pagan men­tal­ity in our world to stim­u­late a felt need to “grab all of the gusto” that we can before it is over. One of the most talked about movies of late is: The Bucket List. Two men make a list of things they want to do before they kick the bucket (imply­ing that this is all there is).
Like Jessie Ven­tura, I have also passed the fifty-five mark. How­ever, unlike the emo­tion­ally pagan world around me, I believe I am on a never-ending time frame. I know that lin­ear time will cease when this world is over, but now I am prepar­ing for time­less­ness. I am tak­ing my own sweet time today — just to get in some prac­tice. Give it a shot for your­self. When you boss calls just tell him that you will get there in your own sweet time — then you will have plenty of time to prac­tice even more.