By Ethan Maurice | December 21, 2020
1. If you think about eternity and the time of your life within it you can find freedom in sensing how little what you do actually matters.
2. If you envision time as sand passing through your hands you can relish in the texture and touch of this moment.
3. If you seek novel experiences you can lengthen your experience of time. Novelty creates memory. The more memories you have across a period of time, the longer that time will feel.
4. If you get so bored that you wish time would go faster you can have a laugh with yourself for wanting to do away with your most valuable resource.
5. If you think of all the generations predating you in your linage you can realize that you are the cutting edge of life — the crest of the wave — and you can harness that energy.
6. If you hear that all twenty-nine people who survived suicide attempts by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge regretted jumping on the way down you can remember that time is change and no feeling is permanent.
7. If you think of living in eternity as keeping forever in mind you can have eternity in this moment.
8. If you stick a mental pin in the moments of life so good that you feel you could die and that would be alright you can remember the supreme gifts you have already been afforded in moments that don’t feel that way.
9. If you project into the future onto your deathbed you can realize that you would give just about anything to return to this moment.
10. If you realize that every bit of what you are composed of has been around forever you can see that you are but the latest bubble of the cosmic soup.
11. If you find a quiet place to sit down and close your eyes you can experience time in quiet contentment by observing how your breath comes and goes as automatic and effortless as waves on a sandy beach.
12. If you remember that once you or a loved one die you will never be face to face again you can pour a gallon of lighter fluid on the fire of your appreciation for them in any moment.
13. If you believe as the ancient Greeks did that you’re not facing the future but backing into it you can stop fretting so much about what you can’t yet see and see the value of placing your awareness in the present.
14. If you notice that a lifetime occurs in a circle and not a line you can see that the time of your life is not for getting somewhere else.
15. If you realize that a shift in your perspective of time can radically shift your experience you can learn to surf time by keeping time in mind and adapting your perspective of it to the needs of the moment.
*Photo by Alex Chmiel with my old GoPro camera one mystic morning in Waimanu Valley.
