Happiness is Freedom From the Constraints of Time
Our time is far too precious a commodity to waste not being wholesomely happy.
Whilst in the midst of a tear streaming, bellyaching, can’t catch your breath laughter party with my little boy the other day, I realized in that tiny moment of everyday simplicity what happiness means to me.
If I could have videoed that very moment in slow motion; the way my son threw his head back heavy with the weight of his laughter, his copper hair catching in the exquisite gleam of early spring sunshine. The toddler-tight grip of his little fingertips anchoring himself from the turbulence of the deepest belly chuckle. The tightness in my cheeks from laughing, loudly, and with complete abandon. The slight sting of the happy tears as they washed freely over my face. Notes of the most sublime melody; our laughter, lingering in my ears.
I would hold onto that moment forever. Replay it over and over again whenever I feel low or lost at sea. Submerge myself in it whenever I feel like I’m failing; as a worker, writer, student, single mother, daughter, sister, friend… and every other role that I embody on a daily basis.
I would replay that moment and remember what it is to lose myself in that simple bliss, to be unequivocally happy, to share happiness with the most precious thing to me on this planet. To create a memory — to be content.
The Mundanities of Life
It is these seemingly simple, mundane moments in life that we miss. We dismiss them so readily as they don’t fulfill the restraint of time that we force upon ourselves. These tiny moments, however beautiful, don’t secure the big promotion at work, organize the wedding, fill out the mortgage paperwork, book the plane ticket.
They don’t put the digits in the bank account to buy the new car or pay for the Instagramable festival ticket. Time does that, and it’s the measure of everything in life as we know it.
We get so concerned about how we use our time, fixated on beating it in any small way that we can, that we try and cram more of it into our days. Always complaining that we never have enough of it left for ourselves. Forgetting what it is to live, to feel alive.
This use of time makes us feel guilty, rushed, exhausted. It makes us compare our use of it to other people’s. It makes us feel inferior, like failures. We should have that job, that house, that much money in the bank. We should have seen half the world by now or be married and having babies.
The problem, however, is not time’s fault. It’s ours. It’s our perception of time and what we ‘should’ be doing with it that makes us feel like this. It renders us completely blind to the purpose of life.
Taking Back Time
Time is so precious, and it waits for nobody, we already know that — but how about we learn to take it back for ourselves? We learn to focus on those fragments in time that make us, and our loved ones, happy.
We give in to the ecstasy of feeling free, alive, and bursting with all of the beautifully positive emotions on offer to us that we quell as unproductive. Love. Tranquillity. Positivity. Joy.
Once more we learn to see time and the world around us through our childhood eyes. To see with clarity the good in all; the primary-colored crayoning of the grass, the summer sky, the flowers growing wild in the hedgerows.
How about we lose ourselves entirely in these moments of happiness, and ask time to take a seat? The job, house, car, holiday, wedding, stress, anxiety, and pressure… forget them, they can all wait. We will never, ever, get to be in this exact moment in time ever again. We need to learn to be overwhelmed and privileged by its fragility. To accept, with honorable respect, the gift of creating memories that it bestows upon us on bent knees.
Take something as simple as watching the spring sunshine metalizing the color of your baby's hair. So fleeting a moment, yet one held vividly in a mind’s eye unchanged, kindled to an ever-aging heart. We need to change the way we view and use our time after all nothing beautiful ever grows if you restrict its natural sunlight or ration its water.
What if we learn to listen to our bodies and our minds when they need a break? To tune in, be self-aware. This beautiful body and brain of ours is the only one we get, and the more we compress and agitate time, the more pressure we put on the mechanics of our existence.
One day something will break. Something will grind, melt, snap, or seize. And replacement parts for our minds and bodies are a lot harder to come by, and the cost of them is far greater than a monetary value.
We need to take the time to just sit and listen. To feel. Feel empowered enough to say no to all the stressors in life that are crippling our mental and physical health. Allow our cold and rusting components to be covered in free and flowering vines, ivy, honeysuckle, wild roses. If we keep them in the sun they will prosper and thrive, together, holding, so we can never fall apart.
If one day it feels like the sun is stuck behind a cloud, just take a deep breath and blow. If you don’t have enough strength that day to do it alone, reach out, help Is all around you. You never know, somebody else might be stuck under that same cloud, desperate to warm their vines in sunlight once more. Together you can blow it away.
On Getting Older
We feel so rushed by time that we dread getting older. On reflection, getting older isn’t anything to dread. It’s an honor to mark another year, month, day. We’re so lucky to have this beautiful life, this precious time. It belongs to each and every one of us. It’s ours!
Ours to spend lost in all of those little moments of happiness, to embrace the memories of a life well-lived and loved; to make them count. Instead of fighting time and allowing ourselves to be enslaved by the race we’ve created against it, overshadowing our memories with anxiety, stress, worry, and pressure, let’s learn acceptance.
That is, to accept the time that we have and be in love with what each of us wants to do with it. Let’s not live our time comparing our lives to others, let’s just be happy with what we have and want, and please ourselves. As long as we’re happy then that’s surely all that matters. With acceptance comes the most beautiful thing our time can ever give us, contentment.
To be content in a lifetime of little moments of bliss, sounds of laughter… the grip of love. To pay attention to the beauty of the world around us that we so selfishly take for granted. To take refuge in the arms of those we love, and feel, really feel, the love and support that cradles and holds us.
To acknowledge the things that we can control and change, and to learn acceptance of those that we can’t.
To pursue our dreams because we want to, not because we feel like we should. If you want that dream, arm yourself with all that makes you happy, and go to battle. You will have to take a stand, empowered by all that has created your strength to live in the moment, live for now, against all those still consumed, lost in the stresses of life and time. They won’t want you to succeed and prove that you can live your best life in the sun.
Their need to suppress, restrain, and push will not allow them to understand why you are free, happy, submerged in life, relaxed in time, and still reaching for your dreams. They will make you doubt yourself; make you feel that you’re living with your head submerged in the clouds, floating in a daydream. Crayoned into a world that doesn’t exist past primary school.
They may even manage to get a clenched hand around your wrist, but they will not win. They can never win, for you have already divided to conquer.
Your only battle is with them, they are battling you, themselves, and time! But you, my friend, you have chosen to live and not just exist. You have already won.
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