Is Your Life Cradled In Clock Hands?
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The change to Daylight Savings Time gives a chance to consider our relationship to time. Here is an excerpt from the poem, Measure of Your Moments:
“I refuse to let my life be cradled in clock hands
or reduced to moments measured
by output toward someone else's dream.”
The clock dictates daily life in our Western world. Punctuality trumps presence because we’re expected to be present at a predetermined place and time. We live today what was predetermined yesterday and not what is present now. Our life is governed by the movement of clock hands and not by the rhythms of life.
Our reliance on the clock is so strong that we cannot understand, and have difficulty tolerating, cultures not bound by a timepiece. We wonder how they get anything done when people arrive “late,” by more than a few minutes and sometimes even hours, without remorse or apology. The clock reigns in our task-driven culture where meaning and value is predicated on productivity. To be fair, this worldview has great merit and can serve in crafting an amazing life. But clock time loses its supremacy in relationship-driven cultures where meaning and value is embedded in connection and interaction.
The poem Measure of Your Moments is included in my third book of poetry, Divine Whispering, available on Amazon.
Every culture will have people that spread across the continuum, either more toward task or more toward relationship, even though the culture will have a dominant theme. Those out of sync with the theme of the culture will often struggle with questions of value and meaning. If this issue arises for you, it may only be a “problem” because your calculation for meaning and value does not fit your culture’s standard measurement.
Photo, prose, and recital © 2016 Nick LeForce
All Rights Reserved.
Is your life cradled in clock hands, metered out on a daily basis? Routines and regularity can provide great comfort and give us a sense of control over our lives, but they may also throttle the flow of life and kill our spirits. The question is:
do your routines serve you or do you serve them?
