Time: A valuable gift

I went to a medical graduation last weekend when one of the celebrants said that the most precious good we have, more precious than health than knowledge, is time. We all want to have more time, time to do, talk, connect, love. Even he commented that patients often accept to live with the disease, even though it is a serious and incurable disease, as long as they can have more time to live with people who love and do what is important to them.

I found this speech very interesting and generated some reflections that I would like to share in today's text. How have you used your time? Is the way you are using your time aligned with the person you want to be and the life that is valuable to you? These questions can evoke some judgments like, "I'm not enjoying my time," "I should be doing more X, Y and Z". So, see if you can adopt an open posture to listen to the answer to these questions, no matter how kindly they connect it with some pains. How many times we may not allow ourselves to look at ourselves and the way we are living for the fear of contacting sadness, guilt, or other uncomfortable emotion if we notice ourselves away from our values. Instead of punishing ourselves for this, we can welcome these emotions as important messengers of what matters to us and what we want to approach.

If you had more time, what would you do? Many times we are very busy, with overloaded routines and complain about having little time. This is a very common account that I listen to (and that chills too, after all, I'm in the same boat). Well, we can't escape reality as it is, we can have a lot of fixed tasks a day that we can't change as work, tidy up, make food, take care of children or other relatives, etc. Each, within its context, may have tasks that take much of their day and are not subject to change. This is a radical acceptance of reality. But we can still question what we would do more time, as this can help us be more in contact with our values. From this, I can think of ways of being more connected with these values in my day, taking into account my context. For example, I can identify that if I had more time, I would see more a particular person, but inside my routine, this is not possible, then I can think of other ways of being connected with that person how to write a message for them daily or until good votes for this person at some point in my day.

Two weeks ago I went to visit a very important person for me who is in the terminal phase of a cancer. It was a sacrifice to make this visit because I was sick and had to take a long trip by car to see this person. But when I arrived and she saw me, as well as well weakened, she gave a wide smile and at the time I thought "I'm glad I came." As much as I felt this joy at that moment, then came the trials: "Why didn't I visit anymore?", "I should have enjoyed my time with her better, now I can't fix it." It's part, I sought to make room for the sadness and the guilt that came with these thoughts and the conclusion I had of this trip was: it was very worth it! Glad I had the privilege of having this time with this person, because that's all I have, I can't go back in time and change what has happened and I can't try to control the future and what will happen. The time I have is the time that is happening now.

If you are here, reading this text now, you are alive, you have a life, then you have time ! How do you want to use it?

This text is by the Cefi Contextus team member - Mariana Sanseverino Dillenburg