Happy November 1st! New months, weeks, and years always have the same effect, at least on me: They make me aware of the inevitable passage of time. It is difficult to believe that we are now in the month of Thanksgiving; it seems that only a very short time ago we were trudging through the heat of summer!
I believe I’ve talked about this before, and if so, forgive the redundancy. I read this summer some philosophy regarding time and the passage thereof, and was drawn to the comparison that one individual made between our very existence and an hourglass:
He compared the present to the very center of the hourglass; to the “tunnel” that only one grain of sand can fit through at a time; that tunnel is this moment, right now. We live at a moment in which the great unknown of the future races to become the giant chasm that is the past; in the time it took you to read that sentence, several of those “grains of sand” tore right past us.
We spend a lot of time worrying about the past, and at times worrying about the future. What this philosopher pointed out to me through his writing is just how useless that is. I’m incredibly guilty of worrying about both the past and the future; am I cured of it yet? Not even close, but at least I know now that I have a problem and can work on it!
The one fall athletic team that is still in competition is our football squad; I tweeted out last night a message about what a phenomenal stage this is for them: Playing a 10-0, great opponent on their home field, with a chance to let the skill and quality of their team push ours to even greater heights. In college, my position coach, at the end of our individual warm-up, would tell us: “Give it everything that you have, for this day will never come again.”
I have absolutely no doubt that tonight our football team will give it everything that they have. I’ve witnessed them doing just that far too many times to think otherwise. I hope that they, and all of us, do the same each and every day of our lives. Athletics in its best and purest form is a microcosm of everyday life: A group of people accomplishing something that alone they would be unable to achieve, and doing it because they are willing to work and sacrifice for each other. When you strip down successful teams, organizations, or indeed successful lives, that is what you get. Individuals who work with and for other people to accomplish things too daunting to get done by themselves. Along the way, these individuals learn the paradoxical truth that to live a personally enriching life, you need to enrich the lives of others.
And in truly great teams, or in truly great lives, the satisfaction of caring for others more than yourself becomes so engaging that the thought of wasting any of the limited time we have in a work day, in a weekend, or in a life becomes so distasteful that the desire to help others leads to the work ethic that you see in successful organizations and people.
It is hard to do. At times our human hard wiring absolutely craves “down time,” and in this day and age we have more things to trick us into doing nothing than our species have ever had before: It is not difficult to spend 30 minutes on your twitter account without even thinking about it; our ancestors never had the ability to sit down for two hours to watch a movie; the idea of walking around a shopping mall and buying absolutely nothing, much less something that is a necessity for your existence, would shock our great-grandparents.
Coaches and players, enjoy the opportunity tonight that you have earned through your selfless service to others and your work ethic. As I said before, the stage is grand, and cherish the chance you get to accomplish great things with people who you care about.
To all of us, enjoy this “speck of sand.” As the unknown future flies by us on its way to the unrecoverable past, don’t dismay at what you can’t do; focus on what you can do, which is make this big rock we all spin around on a better place than it was yesterday.