I have a personal mantra I like to say to friends when I feel like they’re starting to freak out about being late: “I’m always on time for my life.”
Granted, I’m late an awful lot for relatively informal engagements (right on time when professionalism rules or for live music!). I honestly think it’s more important to relax and flow through life instead of rush just to fulfill a social obligation of not wasting my friend’s time. I mean, really. Is there anyone who I made wait for 5-10 minutes who were unhappy during that time? If I ever pissed you off, I’m really sorry.
Sorry not sorry! My pal Harvey taught me to say, “Don’t be sorry, be silly!” And that’s because we are all operating on Soul Time all the time, regardless of what the watch says. It’s a beautiful reality that we often forget in this culture of 15-minute billing intervals.
Tangent 1: It’s not just Time, it’s SOUL TIME! (Click that link for this blog post’s first song on the soundtrack, followed by this one!)
Tangent 2: One time I made an appointment with a nutritionist at the local hospital here in my small town, and they said, OK, see
you on Monday for your hour appointment with the nutritionist. I get there, and she’s showing me plastic forms that kinda look like broccoli and piles of rice to explain to me portion sizes and healthy food choices. I truly learned nothing, but whatever, I had health insurance and paid $35 for the hour. Then I get a bill explaining, it turns out, that I actually made four 15-minute appointments and had to pay something crazy like $300! I fought and fought that, and got them to cut it in half and begrudgingly paid it. If that nutritionist’s time was really that valuable, I’m in the wrong field.
By limiting our understanding of time to the concept of Linear Time instead of Soul Time, we are shorting ourselves dramatically. The Law of Abundance tells us that we have enough time for everything we need, and yet it feels like we can never do it all in a happy, relaxed manner when racing against the clock.
Soul Time also helps us aging gracefully, by accepting that building up Soul Time increases our wisdom and lessons learned in our hearts in such a beautiful way that there is never a reason to feel the least bit upset about visual cues of Linear Time aging. Soul Time aging is awesome! Ram Dass wrote a fantastic book about changing, aging and dying called Still Here. Highly recommended.
Relying on Linear Time also fools us into thinking that we have complete control on our lives. That’s why we are so upset when
things change and the situation doesn’t meet our highest expectations of perfection. Ugh, traffic is so bad, you might say, looking at your watch in disgust. But what a wonderful opportunity to meditate or even plan out gifts for friends, think about a delicious dinner to prepare with a loved one or dream up your next vacation. It’s really all about limiting suffering, as far as I’m concerned. So if I’m happy daydreaming, score!
Besides, if I’m behind the wheel freaking out, what’s actually happening is that I’m nervous about what I think is going to happen. Like, when my parents are in town, I know that if I’m more than one minute late, they are standing at the front door of where we are meeting, anxiously awaiting my arrival. I don’t want my parents to be inconvenienced; but who knows might happen on the way there? Maybe they were caught up. Really, by being worried about time and the cultural expectations associated with its perceived lack of abundance is simply creating dramas in our minds.
The idea of Soul Time has really hit home with me in regards to my plan for extended travel on my boyfriend’s sailboat to
remote locales with currently undetermined itineraries. Originally, the plan was to cruise over to the Bahamas before hurricane season began. Then much-needed projects, money-making opportunities and other parts of life’s realities held up that initial plan, and we have yet to depart three months later.
The thing that I must remind myself is that EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING ON THE EXACTLY CORRECT SCHEDULE. This is my life. It’s not on hold. It’s not “late.” You remember when you were in school and a kid said something like, “Well, I was supposed to be in the next grade up, but I was held back.” Sorry, kid. You were supposed to be in this grade. That’s why you’re there.
It’s all a surrender to the flow. I am grateful for this time, living on the boat yet still near land. I am taking care of so many things that would have gone undone had we left. I clipped a New York Times article that defined flowing as “the voguish psychological term, which refers to the heightened satisfaction and enjoyment derived from clearing out extraneous concerns and immersing yourself, Zen-like, in the task at hand.” Ah, the NOW is an awesome place to be.
As my friend Mary would say when she can’t find her keys or feels like time is running away from her: FLOWING! Just go with the flow, she means. It’s all happening exactly the way it’s supposed to, because we are always on time for our lives. That’s the beauty and freedom with living your life on Soul Time!