Taking It Back

I have recently decided to cut the time-suckers out of my life. I opted to cut out Facebook and television. Let's face it, most of us spend too much time with our faces in front of a screen. One of the main things that caused me to think about the time-sucking ability media has in my life was the giant stack of books that I have yet to read in my house. I love to read. I am always getting books from Amazon. Books are everywhere in my house and I long for the day that I have a library in which to put them. As a child, I spent my summers either at the pool or curled up with a book. I would stay up to the wee hours of the morning reading. So much so that my father bought me a book, and jokingly wrote on the inside of the book cover to not stay up too late reading it. In my adult life, I have found that I don't read as much for enjoyment as I used to or even should. Most of my reading is research or homework based, meaning some of the reading is useful to me, but not necessarily exciting.

It has almost been a week since I cut out the time-suckers. I have been on Facebook twice and half watched an episode of Dr. Who with my sons. Considering the amount of times a day I would check my Facebook or even post, that is a triumph in and of itself. My experience has thus far been interesting. I found that the first few days were difficult. I was so used to getting on Facebook in spare moments or watching Netflix, DVR or the Food Network to entertain me, that I found myself actually craving them. I did not give in, but instead picked up a book instead.

I wanted to finish reading "The Tenth Insight" by James Redfield. I had started it years ago after reading its prequel "The Celestine Prophecy". I quickly found that I wanted to re-read the prequel because I had forgotten what insights one through nine were. However, before deciding this, I read a few chapters and was struck by some things that I read. There are times in your life where you realize that you were supposed to do things at that moment in time. This is one of those times. Without going into the story, you can read it if you so choose, here are phrases that struck me as I read.

"We were learning the value of remembering"

"But faith is a certainty that comes from knowing how things should be."

"Each person must experience the valley alone. I can't help you now. It's my own vision I must find."

And again as I began to re-read "The Celestine Prophecy"

"Working to establish a more comfortable style of survival has grown to feel complete in and of itself as a reason to live, and we've gradually, methodically, forgotten our original question... We've forgotten that we still don't know what we're surviving for."

"How many people do you know who are obsessed with their work, who are type A or have stress related diseases and who can't slow down? They can't slow down because they use the routine to distract themselves, to reduce life to only it's practical considerations. And they do this to avoid recalling how uncertain they are about why they live"

So, as I go along this journey of taking back my time, and reaching, grasping and claiming what I know is meant for me, I will expand upon my thoughts. Especially in memorable quotes such as these. Another post to come with my thoughts, but for now, I challenge you to read them again and think about their meaning. We are not just physical beings. One of my favorite sayings is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Have you forgotten this in your own daily grind?

I should add that since I'm not on Facebook right now (only to put this link on there), feel free to comment here.