Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
~ Marthe Troly-Curtin

So, I like Wire Tap (a show on public radio); though I don't often get to tune in. But, Adam came home from work telling me this evening's episode was listen-worthy, so, I went online & found it.

The second half of the show starts with a reading from David Eagleman's book, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

It's fascinating, and worth a listen (actually, the whole episode is worth a listen, but even if you just tune in for the first few minutes to hear the reading of the short story, it'll be enough to understand the point of my post).

Here's the link (there's a short commercial at the start, reading begins about 30s in): 

wiretap_20091114_23048.mp3 (12.21 mb) 

(a bit of transcription, in case the link doesn't work for you...)

In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the events reshuffled into a new order.

All the moments that share a quality are grouped together: 

You spend two months driving the street in front of your house. 

7 months having sex. 

You sleep for 30 years without opening your eyes. 

For 5 months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet. 

You take all your pain at once: all 27 intense hours of it. 

Bones break, cars crash, skin is cut, babies are born. 

Once you make it through though, it's agony free for the rest of your afterlife.

That doesn't mean it's always pleasant. 

You spend 6 days clipping your nails. 

15 months looking for lost items.

18 months waiting in line.

Two years of boredom staring out a bus window, sitting in an airport terminal.

1 year reading books; your eyes hurt and you itch because you can't take a shower until it's your time to take your marathon 200 day shower

2 weeks wondering what happens when you die

1 minute realizing your body is falling

77 hours of confusion

1 hour realizing you've forgotten someone's name

3 weeks realizing you're wrong

2 days lying

6 weeks waiting for a green light

7 hours vomiting

14 minutes experiencing pure joy

(... and continues on with more awesomeness)

On to my point:

We talk a lot in this life about wasted time. Worry over it. Try desperately (typically unsuccessfully) to multitask, in order to make up for that time we think we're wasting. At night we may fret before bed of how little we “got done”, or swear how tomorrow will be different; we fantasize over our entire to-do list checked off.

But, I think we forget this thing about time… time is moving forward, always going, and taking us with it. Each moment – MOMENT – not even minute, our one glass of experience is filling, while our other glass of experience yet to come is draining - and none of us really know just how big that second glass is. We could be sucking droplets out of the bottom with a straw and be blissfully (or not so) unaware.  We don't know. But we spend so much of our time in a state of worry over things not done, annoyance that we’re having to do this, that, or the other, and planning over how to optimize every moment, that we often forget the time is moving on, regardless of how we feel about it, but how we feel about it colors our moments.

So why not feel good about it? This moment right now. Why not embrace it for what it is – the here & now – the only time we actually HAVE for SURE. How would it feel to believe that THIS MOMENT is exactly what you need it to be.

As my husband said after listening to the show: Everything is life.

Everything is life. This blog post. The laundry. Hugs from your kids. It’s all life. It’s all worth it. It's all what you need, right now.