How We Spend Our Hours

I'm mothering. I'm writing. I'm wifing. I'm planning a party. I'm recovering from dental surgery. I'm buying Christmas presents for tiny tots.

I'm struggling. I'm juggling. I'm stumbling. I'm fumbling.

This is my life. This is nothing new.

It's odd. Sometimes, I'm able to tackle "it all" with relative ease. Sometimes though, this tending to my sides, my many sides, feels hard, more tricky.

This is one of those times. Those tricky times.

And so. I went into this Thursday morning without a blog post lined up. Unprepared. I knew, I hoped, something would come to me. And, thankfully, it has.

Hours.

Yes, this is a post about hours. How each of us spends the hours we have.

My good friend Lindsey of A Design So Vast wrote a wonderful post about hours earlier this week. I have read and re-read this post. I have not yet read through the many comments on the post, but plan to. This post, my post, is a follow-up to Lindsey's, a continuation of the conversation. In my estimation, this is when blogging gets interesting, and fun. When we ask questions and others answer, when we commence conversations and others step up, and chime in.

In her post, Lindsey writes,

Every hour of our life is a choice, a trade-off between competing priorities and desires.  We are all given the same number of hours in a day.  What do you prioritize?  What do you care about?  Where are you spending your time?... Let’s all decide to no longer hide behind the excuse that we “don’t have time.”  The truer response would be “I don’t care enough to really protect the time.”  This may be harsh, but I think it’s also true.  Let’s take ownership of our choices rather than bemoaning their results.  Do you want time to meditate?  Time to go to yoga?  Time to spend reading with your children?  Well, something else has to go.  Unfortunately time, at least in the framework of a day or a week, is a zero sum game.  The ultimate one, perhaps.

One one level, I couldn't agree more. I think it is up to us to make choices about how we spend the hours of our days. It is up to us to wrest some modicum of control over the flow of time in our own lives. It is up to us to fashion and re-fashion our own priorities and stick to them.

But.

Yes, but. It is not always this simple, is it? I don't think so. And, also, I hope not. I think that time is one of the slipperiest beasts out there, something that will elude our grasp no matter our effort sometimes. I think that there are some moments in our lives when we simply do not have time for all of the things we want, and need, to do. I think these are the tricky times, often the defining times.

At the end of her thoughtful musing, Lindsey implores us all to step back and look at the "map of our hours." Oh, how I love this imagery, and this instruction. She writes, "I believe that if you look carefully at the map of your hours over a week or a month, you will see a reflection of what it is in this life you prize most highly.  Do you like what you see?"

What if we look carefully at this map and we see love and effort and confusion? What if we see someone who is endlessly trying to shift the puzzle pieces of her hours into a tidy portrait that might not exist? What if we see someone who loves many things, and many people, and wants foolishly to do it all, and be it all, and equally and beautifully? What if we don't necessarily like what we see, but we understand it, we respect it, we get it?

Thanks, Linds. For making me think. About my hours. About my life. xox

Thoughts on this? Do you agree that if we look at the map of our hours we can see what we prize most highly? Do you think how we spend our time, or struggle with our time, is sometimes as indicative of our confusions as it is of our convictions? Do you agree that, at best, blogging is a continuing conversation?