There’s this joke where a call goes out to 911. "Help, we were hunting, and my gun went off accidentally. I think my buddy's dead!" The operator says, "I need to know whether you need an ambulance; there's been another terrible accident. Can you be sure your friend is dead?" The hunter replies, "Well, all right." BANG! "Yeah, I am sure he is dead.”
During this time where we are forced to slow down, spend time in quarantine, work from home and basically reset our bizarre pace of living, we can totally miss the point, as with the hunter in the joke. I believe we are globally called to a halt. Asked to stop. To revisit our busyness, to address relationships, to pause, breathe and practice mindfulness. We were given the gift of time. No more traffic jams, no more standing in queues, no more tedious work hours we must abide by.
What I do not believe is that we are in this situation to continue doing the same things, just in some other way. To keep on being busy - just in a different manner, to be distracted from living in the here and now, to still not have time for the people in our lives, because we replace one distraction with a new (virtual) one.
James W Frick once said “Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are”. The same is true with our time. What do you spend your time on during this giant time out? Are you continuing to follow past wolf mistakes, just in different sheep’s clothing? Do you still not have time to do the things you always said you’d do, if only you had the time.
What if we paused, pushed reset and use this tremendous gift of solitude and social distancing to reinvent our lives? We could understand to better manage our time, learn to differentiate between what’s urgent and what’s important, rekindle family ties, practice being present, look our kids in the eyes and spend time with them doing the things we never got to do.
We get so focused on what we do not have: how that shapes our lives. How many times have you used time as an excuse not to read that book, not to listen to that podcast, not to pray, not to spend time with your children?
Dad, you now have an extra two hours that commuting stole every day. Mom, you have the extra 30 minutes waiting in a carpool lane or driving kids to soccer practice. What do you fill those hours with? What’s your latest excuse?
We are constantly watching news feeds or reading updates on COVID-19. I get it, it is important that we are well informed, we need to be educated on this pandemic. But we do not need to have 24/7 live streaming of every single newsflash around the world. We do not need new games, new training apps, a new binge-watching series. We do not need just yet another distraction to keep us from doing the things we should be doing.
What if we changed our perspective on social distancing? What if this is the biggest gift you have ever been given? Stop, pause, prioritize. Change only one thing you’ve always wanted to change but previously used ‘time’ as an excuse. Reshape your future.
Perhaps, for the first time ever, time is on your side. We do have time. This can no longer be an excuse. Maybe we are called to rethink how we spend our minutes, hours and days. Don’t miss the point.
You have been given the gift of time. Use it well. Use it wise.