Concept of Time

Time is a very interesting idea. The concept is time is completely man made, but we rely on it very heavily. Until I started thinking about the concept of time, I never really knew the reliance we have on time. Time is used everywhere. I failed to see that and I think we failed to notice the impact time has on us because we are so used to the concept. But time truly is used in so much around us that I am surprised I never really thought about it until now. There is probably a lot that I don't understand about it now, but I just wanted to share some ideas I have about time. First of all, time is used in science a lot. What comes to mind is physics; things like speed, velocity, acceleration, power, current, and even more. Without time, these things don't exist and are not measurable. Take speed- distance over time. Without time you only have distance and you can't calculate speed. Time is also used for us to know when to do things. We know when to wake up, go to school or work, eat, and go to sleep thanks to time. Time tells us when events occur and lets people find each other in these events. Without time no one would be able to tell another person when they want to do something. The whole idea of "when" is gone without the concept of time. Another thing time does is tell us how long something is. We know how long an hour is because we have time. An hour is just a measure of time. Time tells us the duration of events in our life. Without time, we wouldn't know the duration of things. I also thought about what life would be like if the concept time was never introduced. Imagine that. Things would be so different that it was hard for me to imagine a world without time, but I tried my best because it's pretty interesting. How would people be able to know when things were? Would that even matter? People wouldn't even know how to ask when things are, because you can't answer the question of when without time, as I said earlier. People also wouldn't be able to know how long things are, but again, would that even matter? Does time make us too aware of the duration of things in our lives? Do we actually care to much about saving time? Anyway, without time no one would be able to know the duration of things. In a world without time, many words that we use to describe time would be gone. When, how long, duration, after, before, later, earlier, yesterday, tomorrow, hour, second, minute, now, soon, moment, forever, and more words that I can't think of now, are inapplicable. We use these words a lot, but in a world without time most if not all can't be used. There's no real practical application to this, I just thought it was interesting to share.
-Smart

Vision

"So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt." -Genesis 45:8
Recently I remembered the story of Joseph in the bible. Joseph was a man who probably had all the reason to believe his life could not be any worse. His own brothers disowned him and sold him to slavery because they hated him. It's bad enough being sold into slavery, but Joseph was sold by his own brothers. After that, he was able to gain favor with his master, and his master trusted Joseph with more and more responsibilities. When the master left the house, he left Joseph in charge. The master's wife found that Joseph was handsome and strong, and so she tried to have sex with him. Joseph knew that if he gave in to her, his master would be upset with him, and so would God. So Joseph decided to fight his desire to sleep with her and he literally ran away from her. She became upset with Joseph and made false accusations about him to his master, and he was thrown into prison. In prison, Joseph was able to gain favor with the prison keeper, and eventually with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Joseph was able to get the position of second in command of Egypt. His brothers went to Egypt during a famine, and he was able to help them. (If you want to read the whole story you should read Genesis. I think his story starts around chapter 37.) While Joseph's story has many amazing things in it, what I find amazing is his vision. The way he viewed his life is incredible. He had so many chances in his life to just give up and forget about any vision he ever had for his life, but he didn't. When nothing was going right for him, he was still able to look at the bigger picture of his life. Had he only focused on his current situation, he probably would have given up on life. He was able to see his life as a whole, not in parts. Many times we focus on different parts in life, and we forget that how the parts fit together is what really matters, not the parts themselves. Think of a puzzle; it's not one part that makes the picture, but the sum of the parts. When your vision is focused on only your current situation, you forget the bigger picture. In an earlier post I talked about relaxing. Use that time to see how the different times in your life fit together. Don't let your vision become to narrow. Never forget that there is more to life than your current situation. Maybe your life doesn't seem to make sense. Remember that there is going to be more to your life than your current situation. Keep your vision broad.
-Smart

Complacency

So recently I start thinking about complacency. First of all, it would be good to define complacency. Complacency means being satisfied with yourself and your current situation. Is this good? Well it sounds good, but many times it is not. When you are complacent in your life, you feel as if everything is right and you are doing fine. While most people want to be in this state of mind be careful- it is a dangerous state. Why? This sounds contradictory, but being complacent is not good for you. You can't grow when you are okay with where you are in life. And one of the most important things in life is to grow, but I will talk about that another time. When people life a complacent life, they like things to be repetitive, simple, and manageable. While this is not necessary bad, it's not doing anyone much good. When people's lives are repetitive, simple and manageable, they begin to feel comfortable in life. When they are comfortable, they don't like change, and their comfort zone gets bigger and bigger. You don't want that. While people think it's good to have a pretty comfortable life, it's not. It's much better to not have a super-comfortable life, because this causes you to backslide. Take a musician; if they are satisfied with their level of playing. they don't get better. Actually they usually get worse. The things that used to matter to them get sloppy, because they get complacent with their playing. What a good musician does is always tries to improve, always working to get better. They don't get complacent with their level of play, they constantly drive themselves to do better. This is how a good life is lived as well I believe. Always thirst for something more in your life. Don't get satisfied with where you are, keep pushing yourself to do more. Live an unsatisfied life. You might be thinking "whoa, that sounds like what gets people depressed". Some people who get depressed with themself are unsatisfied with their life. But they think they can't improve. That's the difference. Your unsatisfactory life should not lead to a mindset of hopelessness and defeat. Is supposed to be the mindset where you know you can do better, where you don't want to settle for less so you always improve yourself. Living a life that's not complacent means you always move forward, never quite settling down. Once you start getting complacent, you begin to backslide in life. So I encourage you, don't have a mindset of complacency, but a purposeful mindset.
-Smart

Relaxation

So recently I have been to a church retreat and I really enjoyed it. But one of the people there mentioned something I found was really interesting and very practical. He talked about reflecting on the day. This got me thinking about people and how we don't spend a lot of time just relaxing and reflecting on our lives. Especially in this day and age we always try to do one thing after the next, and never really spend time focusing on one thing for a long time period. We like things to be quick in succession, always doing something. In this competitive time we always try to outdo others and push ourselves to accomplish a lot. We like living a fast paced life, we like doing a lot. Think about it; the reason we have microwaves is so that it takes a shorter time to cook. Why do we want shorter cooking time? So we can do more things in that time. Same with fast food, cars, computers, smart phones, and many other things. The more we do, the better we feel. We try to do as much as we can. We do way too much. We think by doing a lot we will gain some sort of significance or meaning in our lives. Not necessarily. Sometimes people need to take a breath and relax. There's no reason to push yourself all the time. You'll just wear yourself out. When we try to do all these different things, right after another, we lose the significance of what we just did. We have no time to realize what we just did, because we are always focused on the next thing. Without taking some time to reflect on what we did, we forget why we did that. We never find the value of what we just did. Our busy lives prevent us from finding meaning in the things that we do. Without taking a moment to just relax, we forget the reason we do the things we do, and how they fit into the bigger picture of our life. I encourage you; relax. Take some time everyday to think about the things you did throughout the day. Think about what the purpose was for doing those things. Think about the bigger picture. Just relax. Lie down, close your eyes and reflect on your day. Take five minutes. If you think that's a long time, you definitely need to take five minutes and relax because you are probably doing too much. Take five minutes to relax and reflect on your day. Try to find the reasons you do all the different things you do. Even if you can't really think at the time, it's okay. Just take that time to relax. Sometimes we are too stressed out with all the things we do. So just use that time to recuperate. Do this everyday, or as often as you can, because it will help you. So just take a couple minutes, and relax.
-Smart

Repetition

So recently I tried picking up skateboarding again after not doing it for two years and I realized that I suck right now. I wasn't too bad two years ago but now I lost all the skill I had before. Why? Why did I lose the ability to do some of the tricks I could do before? These were random questions I thought about in my mind. Of course the answer is obvious; I hadn't practiced in a long time. When I stopped skating, I lost some of the ability I had before. The muscle memory I used to have just wasn't there anymore and my muscles lost the necessary strength to do the tricks I could do before. That much is obvious. I didn't practice at all in a while and I lost that ability I used to have. But then I wondered why we need to practice so much to get better at things or just maintain skills. Why do our muscles work like that? Why does our brain work like that (this applies to memory as well)? Why can't we just be good at everything? Or at least why can't we retain abilities without constant practice? Wouldn't that be so much better? Well, yes it would be better for an individual, but not necessarily for everyone. Think about it; if everyone was able to get good at everything, there would be no need for other people. There would be no need for teams, groups, or the like. Take for example a basketball team. There are five positions that must be in a team; the point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and the center. If all the players could get good at everything, there would be no team. Everyone would be able to do everything. It wouldn't be the same. If all the players were good at all positions there would be no need for the positions. Each position requires constant practice and repetition for the skills needed to play that position. Each player has to develop skills for their position, and that position only. That's how a good team is made. My point is that if everyone was able to get good at everything, there would be no need for each other. I think that this is how we were purposefully made; made to need each other. I believe the reason we are only able to get good at certain things is so that we have to depend on one another. This is one of the reasons I think unity is very important for people. Without each other we will not be able to do things that are only achievable together. A basketball team is only good when all the players work together and each person works at their position. I also believe that the reason we are only able to do certain things is so that we learn to trust others and learn to accept that we cannot live life alone. We need something more than just ourselves.
-Smart