Nightly Ramble: Another Weekend Down.. But What of the Weekdays?

This is not going to be a happy read, tonight.

Oh, don’t worry, I’m not in a foul mood… more thoughtful, than anything…

“Don’t wish your time away… after enough of it goes by, you’ll wish you had it back again.”

Such was the advice from my mother back at age sixteen. At around three times that age, I’m only starting to get a handle on what she was talking about.

To be honest, I have always found myself wishing for some event to happen. And waiting for it. Anxiously. And then, finding myself disappointed when the event finally shows up. It never seems to make it to the level of the billing that my anxious waiting, gave it.

Weekends, mostly, seem to be what we’re waiting for.

We spend a lot of our waking lives, basically skipping from weekend to weekend. Basically, what we’re doing, is erasing 5/7 of our life in the doing. Oh, we are faithful enough in our work. In our schooling… whatever weekday efforts that our obligations put us to.

Lately, though, I have begun to wonder , just what we miss by living our lives in this fashion. And, frankly, Mom’s right. I’m beginning to wish I had that time back again.

We all know someone who is not living up to the potential that we perceive them to have. We can think of this person in our minds without any hesitation. Well, think again. Because, you see, we, all of us, are not living up to our potential. There is always something in our lives that could have taken us a lot farther, had we taken the time and applied that needed energy to it. Dr. Stephen Hawking. There’s a person who you would think almost automatically, that their potential would be extraordinarily limited. And certainly, there were a number of things the good doctor could not do. He certainly has no capacity for the role of a sports hero. a fireman. A policeman. Soldier. Spaceman. And isn’t that ironic… a man who holds such understandings of space in his head, will never visit space because of his limitations?

Yet, in spite of those limits… who among us, could achieve what he has? If nothing else, he single-handedly has redefined what we see as human potential. More correctly, by simply applying the potential he has, he redefined the boundaries of disability. If he can achieve what he did , despite the disabilities thrown his way, how can we be less capable? I’ll tell you; He made the use of his time to the greatest effect… that’s what was maximizing his potential.

What we see as our own potential, for most of us, is far less than what he is already achieved. And yet, look at the man. Consider the childhood he had. If it can be called that. And who would’ve given him a chance of coming anywhere near to where he did?

I don’t know what, other than the vision of the old gink in the mirror, brought this on. Call it a midlife crisis, if you will, but I suppose, that it’s the final realization, that I have not, nor will I, achieve to the potential that I contain, and I find it cold comfort that most of us won’t. Colder still, is the idea that the reason we won’t achieve to our potential, is because we allow ourselves to become diverted from it. We CHOSE the lesser path, because it’s EASIER. I think that I can guarantee that those who achieved to their potential, aren’t living just from weekend to weekend.

I make no judgments in all of this. We all do it. But I can’t help but wonder, what might have been, already.

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Warmer around here tonight; around 40 or so. It’s supposed to be warm most of this week.

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We did some running around tonight, on the idea of getting some Christmas light snapshots to post… and I’ll put them up in the next day or two. Doesn’t play as well, though, without the snow to set them off a bit.

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