This week I have just one thing to share with you about how we use our time. Hopefully you’ll find it helpful and cool too.

I want to talk about my friend, Hap Tallman. Many of our students who have come to Hawaii have met Hap and know what a beautiful, one-of-a-kind dude he is. The dude before “The Dude.”

Anyway, Hap is very funny and very wise. I had dinner with him the other night and the topic came up of how quickly time seems to be passing these days. Hap said, “I’m going to be 70 in a few months.” And I said, “Well, I’m about to turn 60 so what’s turning 70 like?” And classic-Hap said, “You’ll find out in a few minutes!”

No kidding. It’s crazy how much faster time/life seems to be going these days. 

Six years ago yesterday my mom passed away. It truly seems like last year or two years at the most. Here’s the last photo ever taken of the two of us:

Is time ripping by for you?

Remember when we were kids and summers seemed to last all summer? Now they go by in a blink!

I’ve been here in Hawaii for the last month and I can tell – and I know I will get NO sympathy – that it has flown by. One thing I try and do is catch a sunrise every morning and then a sunset every evening.

Here’s yesterday’s sunrise:

And last night’s sunset:

Starting and ending my day with this powerful gift definitely slows things down some, but just the same, my month here has FLOWN by.

This topic of time flying by has been on my mind a lot lately because I am turning 60 in November, which is so weird because I am not old enough to be 60. But apparently I am because it’s a coming like a freight train.

And because I’m aware of it, I’m sensitive to lots of things having to do with the passing of time. When I see a father holding his little girl in his arms, I think back to me doing the same with my little girl. Well, my little girl is going to be 24 next month! 

That’s impossible.

The other night I was watching a sunset at the Mauna Kea Resort when an older gentleman jogged by me – actually “jogged” is being generous. He kind of waddled back and forth BUT he was moving and he was living and staying active. I was so impressed I went over to him and introduced myself and expressed how much I admired him for staying in such great shape. I asked his age and he said 97. He then said, “I’m holding on ’cause time goes so fast.”

His name is Walter. I asked him if I could take a picture and he said, “Sure! I love pictures!”

Here’s me with my new friend and hero, Walter.

Speaking of heroes, meet my dad. He’s going to be 90 in February and he is truly my hero. He’s a beautiful man who’s gotten better with age and he is in incredible shape physically and emotionally.

Meet my dad:

I read something recently on this topic and the writer shared a few reasons why time seems to be going so fast. He said when we were little we didn’t have a lot of experience with “time” – at age 10 we’d only had 10 summers, for example, and only really remembered 5-6 of them so they seemed to go slower but as we get older and we have more time lived then time speeds up. Maybe. I’m not sure, but maybe. He also said that our culture has become so fast – everything has sped up – from how quickly we drive and/or can get from point A to point B either by car, train, or plane – to instant access to music, food, movies. You can download or stream or deliver everything in an instant. 

I think this is a definite cause of time speeding up.

As I said, I’ve spent a lot of time reading about all this and here’s the bottom line: whether we get to live to be 100 or 90 or 80 or 70 or 60 or 50 or 40 or 30 or a life as short as 20, it goes fast.

My takeaway from all this is I want to relax more and trust more and have more fun and do everything I possibly can to have THE most healthy days I can have, however many more I get to experience. And when I say “healthy” I mean physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially.

I want to laugh more and eat slower and breathe deeper and SLOOOOOWWWWWWWWW down. 

That’s my 60th birthday present to me.

How about you?  

What can you be doing to enjoy your life more?

I’d love to hear so either send me an email by hitting reply or go  HERE and post it on the Facebook page for The Meisner Technique Studio.

I hope you have a great day today. I’m off to the beach now!

My very best,
Jim