A Year of Living Unremarkably: In a remarkable year, many of us have lived unremarkably. Time created placeholders in our heads. We lived mostly within. Anxieties were measured incrementally, and unfortunately, that capricious uneasiness becomes stored within ourselves. Creative people looked for salvation in creative tasks. For some, that was the perfect antidote for the turmoil going on worldwide. For others, it just seemed to be an outlet that only brought relief momentarily.

You are not alone. Everyone’s mental clock ticked away, second by second, minute by minute. As the hours came and went, inner peace hit measurable peaks and valleys. Will our lives ever be the same, is a question that has become common in everyone’s thoughts. Men, women, and children seek security which is often associated with normalcy. It’s built into all of us to create as much stability as possible in our lives. But when influences from the outside that we virtually have no control over present themselves, our stability is rocked. And for nearly every man, woman, and child on the planet, it has been rocked severely.

Is there a solution? So far, everything we seek, like stability, can be evasive. Picture your mind filled with a 100 clocks, all sent at different times. Some of these clocks have alarms built into them, and they go off without any preplanning or warning. The sounds from these alarms can be, like most alarm clocks, quite annoying. You might say they can jolt you into a spinning of uncontrollable thought patterns. Some are compulsive and incomprehensible. There is an undertone to all of this. Your brain becomes a little foggy, and your thoughts become uncontrollable. You look and can hear all of the clocks in your head ticking away. You desperately search for the one that tells you the true time of the reality you’re living in the now. The search for the clock that gives you the correct time can be daunting; after all, 100 clocks is a lot of clocks.

How to find the mental timepiece that you can trust and embrace. The clock that knows how to remove all of the other, out of sync timekeepers from scattering your thoughts. You may first want to understand that you are like time, constantly in motion. Nothing stands still, especially our thoughts. They can run faster than time itself and are difficult to harness. But here’s the key. Never take time for granted and never allow the cares of the world to rob you of your allotted time. Focus on your time in the here and now. There’s something wonderfully peaceful about finding joy in just as little as one minute of your thinking. Cumulative minutes become hours, and hours become days. And those days can be less exhausting when you break up your life into small units of time you live in, adopting peaceful thinking.

Many of you who are reading this know that I am the co-host of a podcast. The podcast started in January 2021 and has since grown beyond our expectations. The significant thing I want to share with you is that we have had the opportunity to chat with creative people worldwide. Even though we never directly addressed what we all have been going through. I did notice that there was a common theme in the way these creative people approached their lives. Even though they tried to be positive about everything. They all had those days filled with insecurities and deep concerns about their futures. They were all people in motion. A good selection of humanity. Their lives, their concerns for their families and relatives, and even other people they didn’t even know demonstrated to my co-host and me that there are many people out there that understand life has its ups and downs. Still, it also has meaning for those willing to pursue their dreams.

The podcast turned out to be a very positive part of our lives. And judging from the feedback we received, we’ve had a positive impact on all those we have come in contact with. It’s hard to say who is the big winner here. I know for us, you never really appreciate the fact that there are many wonderful people in this world and a lot of them are very talented. They have much to share when given the opportunity. Our philosophy has always been to help other people achieve their goals, and you will achieve yours. But it goes beyond that. Like minds attract like minds. Look for those that you can believe in and that they can believe in you. And one by one, those crazy clocks inside your head will start to evaporate, and you will be left with the one clock that guides your time with positive reinforcement and delivers on positive outcomes.

I don’t have the answer. All I know is, keep the faith. Mankind is a sturdy lot, and we have overcome many challenges since we started to walk on earth. After all, I would not be writing this, and you would not be reading this had those challenges not been met over the millennia. Everything seems to work out for the good even though, at the time, it shows no signs of being anything but. Reset your mental clock start your day by enjoying every minute you can. Yes, some minutes will be better than others, but cumulatively at the end of 24 hours, you will have chalked up more positive minutes than negative minutes, and that, my friend, will give your mind a state of peacefulness. It will help you create your own normalcy.

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

 

Buddha.