I thought as a follow up to the blog I posted a couple of weeks ago:  https://itsnotclever.wordpress.com/2023/01/22/all-roads-lead-to-where-i-stand/ I would follow up with another discovery I made far too late.

As my group of friends and I sat around the table last Saturday night, the realisation came to me of the importance and value of time. I joked that having a meal was great, but if they had just all put £20 in a pot, they could have got me something really nice. 

The truth is getting 8 people with busy lives’, and great responsibility’s, around a table these days is a logistical nightmare. There are now children, grandchildren, aging parents, and all manner of other things to consider. 

The value of time in the modern world, is now a gift that is more precious than any financial reward. Giving up time to someone else, to be present in someone else’s life, in a world where we are stretched and spread around so thinly is a valuable gift and it shows we care. 

I have reached a time in my life where I am conscious of the fact the time ahead of me is less than the time, I have behind me. My desire to spend it in a way that feels worthwhile is important to me. I made a pledge to try to stay present in all my encounters with other people, to avoid being distracted by devices and to try an improve an area in my life that I have been poor at. To truly be there in the moment – this oft repeated cliché – is so important to how we ensure that we are not ticking boxes but trying to connect with other people. 

We must be careful of thinking it’s possible to ‘make time’ to do things. This delusion that time is something we can conjure up. The truth is we can’t make time, we must be willing to spend it. The finite hours we have are valuable and we must treat them as such. We never know what is around the corner, or even if there is a corner. I am not the most sociable of humans, but one of the greatest pleasures in life, is talking and sharing our lives with friends and even strangers. We discover something new, we reminisce on something past, and we connect with each other, and this to me, is the real meaning to life.