How your perception of time is the best gauge of your fulfillment.
As I age, the one thing I want more of in my midlife is time.
I’d love to spend more time with my family, my wife, and my daughters, but I’ll never get an unlimited supply of those precious minutes.
So instead, what do I try to do? I think of ways of slowing down time. How can I get more out of every moment of my life? How can I squeeze more time out of the clock? There has to be some scientific way to make the days longer, right?
If there were some way to get more time in my midlife season, how would I use it?
Would I wonder how much time is left and regret the things I didn’t accomplish?
Or, would I wonder how I got to the end so quickly?
Think about those micro moments in your life when time flew by.
You planned to get married. You spent months selecting venues, menus, music, flowers, dresses and dance. It took forever and sometimes you weren’t even sure if your relationship could make it to the wedding day.
BUT……………
Then the day of the wedding. The ceremony, the dinner, the partying, the dancing……All over in a split second. You get to the end of the night and think, “What happened? How is this over already”?
Or, on a smaller scale think about a time you were planning a party at your house. You spent all week cleaning the house, getting food and drinks prepped. Just as soon as your guests arrive, it is time for them to go.
You were having so much fun in a moment, that the passage of time flew right past you.
It is in those moments, from the start of something incredible, until the time that it ends, that you are truly ALIVE and in the MOMENT. You are so filled with conversation, laughter, joy, love and fulfillment that you don’t notice the clock or the passage of time.
That is the great irony of life. When you are truly fulfilled, when you are in the moment, when you are filled with passion, time is not on your side. The more you stay fulfilled the faster your life goes.
It is quite a delicate balance. Your instinct is to preserve and embrace every precious moment. However, in doing that you become so fully immersed in the activity that the passage of time is so rapid that it is hard to hold on for the ride!
That is where the dilemma arises. You have to choose. Will I allow myself to stay a miserable recluse and live a long, drab life or will I laugh, love, and break bread with friends and family?
Will I celebrate the smallest moments?
Will I immerse myself in my passions?
Will I charge full speed ahead into fulfilling every day of my life?
So many of us, who have connected here through the Midlife Fulfilled Podcast, have noticed how our passions and fulfillment have altered the passage of time.
When you are in the moment, when you are giving it all, when you are passionate about your work, time is irrelevant. All of your focus and energy are pointed at your project, not the clock.
Time is not going to wait for you. The clock is running whether or not you are looking at it!
Think about those moments before you were fulfilled.
The long commutes.
Hours of never ending work.
The laundry list of chores.
The honey-do lists.
The endless routines.
Looking back on your life before fulfillment, those days seem to never end. You were going through the motions, completing one task after another over and over.
But then, you pivoted.
Look at your life after fulfillment.
Maybe the pandemic was a period of enlightenment for you. Maybe the pandemic allowed you to prioritize what mattered to you. Maybe you picked up a new sport like Pickleball or Disc Golf, or you started podcasting, YouTubing or cooking in your spare time.
You probably still do those activities you did before you found fulfillment. You still have a list of chores, a full time job and lists of things that need to be done around the house.
But on a daily basis, when you compare how time passes when you are immersed in your new passions to how time passes at work, you can see this working on a micro level.
The work day and chores may drag on and on, but when you take the court for Pickleball or tee off on the disc golf course, you may look down at your watch and think, “How is it 8 o’clock already?”
How do you want to spend your time now in midlife?
This is something you can feel deep down inside. You know the right thing to do is follow your passions. You know you should go all in on the things that you love.
A life lived with love, will go fast and because of that I truly wish you the most blessed and fulfilled life! I hope you’ve chosen the path that makes you wonder where the time went.
I know that I’ll have spent my days so filled with love, passion, energy, hope, dreams, moments, laughter, friends, family, company, and career projects that it all went by too fast!
A fast life is a blessed and fulfilled life! Charge into the world with passion!
