Mother Knows Best

Just when I think I have all the answers..........

Last week we kicked around the concept of the only thing we truly own.

I hope you had a chance to reflect on time. Your time. How you spend it. How you use it. How you appreciate it.

I certainly did. Since last week my diet was a little better. I exercised a little more. I tried to communicate a little more effectively. I was controlling my time. Just like I advised.

But then my phone rang. It was Mom. And she had something to say.

She said last week’s blog made her think.

“Good”, I replied. “That’s the whole point of it”.

She told me about how she is trying to keep busy nowadays. Making new recipes. Working in the garden. Walking on the treadmill. Staying in touch with her sisters every day.

I felt damn good as I thought about the impact my wisdom had made on her. I’m a pretty smart and insightful guy.

And then she brought me back to earth.

She disagreed that she had full control over her time.

“Huh?”

She told me that when she read the blog, she thought she didn’t own all of her time. Her thoughts went to the times that she wished she had back. The times she spent being a mom to two little boys.

Two little boys playing stickball in the street in front of a Staten Island duplex.

Two little boys making a mess of the basement and ignoring the calls for dinner.

Two little boys trading the beef for the vegetables in the stew that she made……much to the dismay of their father.

Two little boys fighting as two little boys are supposed to do. And then laughing and playing ten minutes later.

Two little boys who are now all grown up and no longer there.

She told me that if she truly owned her time she would love to go back to those days. To be able to re-live that time once more. But she can’t.

I tried to come up with a reasonable defense. “But that just goes to show that you did make the best use of that time. The point is to always make sure you remember that before your time is in the past.”

She wasn’t buying it. And now I wasn’t sure I was either.

Last week I made sure to check the definition of what it meant to own something. If we owned our time that means we have control over our time.

You would think Mr. Brilliant here would take a moment to check the definition of the only thing that we truly owned. Of course, I didn’t.

So, I googled and there it was.

Time - The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole

Now I was the one who was thinking. If time is represented by the past and future too, then we don’t have full control. (If you happen to have a flux capacitor, I’d like to borrow it)

So now what. We can’t go back to re-live or change the past. And we can try to plan and prepare for the future, but I know of a little virus who would say that your plans and preparations will only go so far.

If I don’t own time, then what do I truly own?

But maybe what I told my Mom was right. Maybe what I own is not time but whether I make the best use of time.

I can’t change the past. It’s done. But I can certainly learn from it. I can certainly enjoy the memories I have from it. I can certainly teach others based on the experiences, good or bad, I gained from it.

I can’t change the future. Whatever it will be, it’s coming. But I can certainly plan as best as I can for it. And I can certainly respond to the many surprises it will have for me, good or bad, as best as I can.

And like I told Mom, I can maximize the present before this time becomes another part of the past.

My fingers type away.

Thanks, Mom.

Until Next Time..........