The Affectation and Influence of Time

How has time affected you? Me? Us? Or even a different question, how have the times affected all of us?

For some, time has moved at the speed of light, and for others, it is slow as molasses. Everything changes with time. Some progress, others digress, and still, some treading water hoping to go nowhere. Regardless, time changes everything.

These years of pandemics have shown how time has affected us all in one way or another. Look at the other part of the world where they have an invasion. Add on top of that the struggles of recovering from life in general.

We are all affected by the time that slipped into our past. It has become our history.

Maybe an even better question could be summed up with an answer: “How does time influence you?“

As the playwright suggests, we all enter and exit as a performer for the moment. Here, today. Gone, tomorrow. And there are many entrances and exits of life.

All the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many parts,
his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare

We kill time and try to rob from its bank of future time. Times are lost and never found again. We waste it, and can never recover it once it’s gone. Time is relentless, it never stops. Unless you are traveling at the speed of light, the same clock affects us all. Real-Time. False Time. Fast. Slow. Bank it. Spend it.

Through it all, we are affected by how we allow the affectation and influence of the times to mold and shape our world.

What’s Happening

I woke up and immediately thought about my busy day. One task is piled on top of another, and it all becomes jumbled as time slips from focus here to focus there.

There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.

This has nothing to do with time management because I’m confident you cannot control the times. I can only be in charge of my reaction and response to the times. None of us are good at multitasking. Splitting the exact moment between multiple thoughts and events only leaves us with a fracture of resources to devote to anything.

Focus is lost. Our eyes glaze over.

While true, we understand the times better. Add politics, war, viruses, weather, and any other distractions, and our world goes strained. Too much water in a balloon will create dangerous reactions. Pressure builds. The membrane bursts, and everything is lost!

If you cannot control your thoughts about these times, during these times, you might be tempted to flee! To the mountains, away!

Hmmm. Remember the old commercial. Calgon, take me away!

How Do We Escape The Pressures

Prioritizing our lives certainly helps. But, how do you limit the input of distractions and pressures? Blinders and earplugs may help, but when it’s our mind that flits from here to there, there must be some internal controls put into place.

Notice. I said internal controls. That’s you and your mind in charge of the situation. Others may add and remove some tasks and responsibilities, but only you control your reaction to the pressure of the times.

The Apostle Paul says to bring into captivity every thought (2 Corinthians 10:5). This concept of captivity lends itself to locking up and moving out of sight. Jesus uses the same word when he talks about Israel being defeated and dispersed (Luke 21:24). Paul uses the word again to reflect on himself being held by sin, and we all know how sin leads down paths we would never have taken if we were in our right spirit and mind (Romans 7:23)

It’s really about control.

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it. 
~Stephen R. Covey

Only you can control the pressures of the times we are in. Do not let someone else dictate to you what you should pick up and carry.