I'm getting yet another late start. This time it's 10:30pm. I've spent the last hour demonstrating remarkably poor time management, doing things like watching a Church league basketbrawl game, and practicing a song for an open mic on Thursday, and fixing drywall, which could easily be done tomorrow or the day after or any time that I'm not supposed to be meditating on all things Advent. And I wouldn't be a "bad time management person" if I hadn't just complained to my therapist today about how I'm terrible with time management. I feel like there ought to be a word for "bad time management person" Maybe an "Edwin." Let's try that again: And I wouldn't be an "Edwin" if I hadn't just complained to my therapist today about how I'm an "Edwin." Oh, yes. That definitely works.
So now, to get with this meditation, I'm smoking (tobacco, for all you miscreants out there) and drinking, but not as much as I did during meditation #1 when I more or less hit "publish" before it was actually finished (I went back and cleaned it up).
I just Googled "time management." I clicked on the first link and it took me to a remarkably uninviting page. Like a house you might walk into and, for some reason, before anyone speaks a word, find that you feel completely unwanted. Maybe there's stacks of clutter, or it's dirty (not messy), or there's strange decor, or children. To my surprise, that link contained an eye-opener: Good time management requires an important shift in focus from activities to results: being busy isn’t the same as being effective. (Ironically, the opposite is often closer to the truth.) What?! Ironically?! Ben Camino has that trademarked! And yet...and yet...I guess that is ironic. I mean, I think it's ironic. Maybe it's only ironic because I'm an Edwin and I have no time management skills and so what's obvious to non-Edwins comes as a surprise to me. Being busy isn't the same as being effective? Bosh. I'm certain that in order to be effective you must be busy. Let's move on. What are the benefits to time management?
Greater productivity and efficiency. Makes sense.
Less stress. I get that.
Better professional reputation.
Hmm. Now I'm suspicious. I spent about an hour today on the phone talking with Eric Wolfe. I don't regret it one bit, but I'm certain it was poor time management and there's not a chance it did a thing for my LinkedIn account. "Better professional reputation." Thoreau would vomit up his carrot and potato garden if he heard a phrase so abhorrent. An appropriate Thoreau quote:
"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?"
I am certain of it, that Thoreau had scarcely a sense of time, let alone "time management," and the idea that he should learn it for the sake of a "better professional reputation," well, well, it's absurd.
I read a bit in Thoreau's journal just now, a small break from writing, and I discovered this, from Sept. 7, 1854, age 34:
"I do not so much wish to know how to economize time as how to spend it."
He goes on:
"The scenery, when it is truly seen, reacts on the life of the seer. How to live. How to get the most life. How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my every-day business, I am as busy as a bee about it."
AHHH-HAAA!!! To be busy, busy as a bee! In pursuit of the good life, of what is true and beautiful and right!
"I ramble over all fields on that errand, and am never so happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax."
He's really rolling with this bee analogy.
"I am like a bee searching livelong day for the sweets of nature."
That settles it. I'm going on a run tomorrow. Getting outdoors and searching for life. Too much screen time these days. Too much phone. I want to run down this old weedy railroad track I discovered a few weeks ago. I want to jog around the downtown and run past what old brick is left and see what I can see. I want to smell the grease wafting from the lunchtime kitchens. I want to hear the traffic. I want to feel the concrete under my running shoes and find the rhythm of my breath. I want to hum around this city, paying attention. I was made for this. Some years ago when I really wanted off the grid I bought a 49cc moped, the sort that doesn't require a driver's license, and I'd crawl around town at about 30mph. Life slows down on a moped. You start noticing houses and trees and shapes and colors your eyes never caught before. I've missed that moped now for about 3 years, but since taking up jogging in the summer I've enjoyed getting back to that slow move.
I love a slow move.
Advent is a slow move, when I stop and give it a chance. Advent isn't for the Effective Time Manager With A Better Professional Reputation. Or rather, they aren't for it. I don't think they'd get along. Me, I want to be busy being slow. Last Advent I tried to shut 'er down and take a nap. This year I think I want to start buzzing. Cooking potatoes, cleaning the house, fixing things, lifting things and going on runs, learning new music, drinking new drinks, loving what ought to be loved and hating what ought to be hated. Oh, and I want to read more of this Thoreau journal. I'll fit a nap in at least a few times, no doubt. But tonight I can't stand the thought of letting good honey go to waste. There are new moons, howling wolves, and strange skies out there. "If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being," wrote Emerson. This is Advent. We were made for this. Tonight I am ready to brave this city and this life and this season. Tomorrow I will make my way through my day like a bee, zipping from flower to flower, I will manage my time like a 19 year old manages a Waffle House at 3am. I will be an Edwin.
I'm blowing out this Advent candle for the night and falling asleep with this journal. Be well, pilgrims. Be slow.
The Christmastide Vespers Office for Tuesday of the First Week of Advent, The Hymn
O God, creation's secret force,
Yourself unmoved, yet motion's source,
Who from the morn till evening's ray
Through every change does guide this day:
Grant us, when this short life past,
The glorious evening that will last;
That, by a holy death attained
Eternal glory may be gained.
Grant this, O Father ever one
With Jesus Christ Your only Son
And Holy Ghost, whom all adore,
Reigning and blessed forevermore.
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