Time ticks away...get out and live

"Time, Time,
Time, see what's become of me,
While I look around for my possibilities."

These lyrics are from a classic song by Paul Simon, called "A Hazy Shade of Winter," a song that, like most of Paul Simon's work, I love very much.

I've been thinking a lot about time as of late. I know I have yet it on this blog, but my wife and I are going to be parents soon. Very soon. Such as, a few weeks soon. Time has flown by and I can not believe that nine months has gone by as swiftly as it did.

When we first found out we were expecting, I spent several months in a constant "list" mode, thinking only of everything that had to be done and crossed off that list. By about month 7 or 8, all of a sudden it hit me like a brick - this is the ONLY time, ever, that this will be your first child. This is the ONLY time, ever, that you will have where life is like this before you are, a family, with a child.

Suddenly, I took a step back. I wish it hadn't taken me 8 months to do so, but I'm glad it hit me when it did.

Ferris Bueller was right. "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Today is the only time we get today. I implore you, folks, don't let it pass you by. Embrace it. Love it. Live it.

It is one of the greatest feelings in the world when you do.

"Oh, Magoo, you've done it again!" OR the true gifts in our lives

With the holidays comes all the classic Christmas specials that I loved all my life, just as many before me have. You know the classics I'm talking about - the Rankin Bass Stop-Motion Rudolph, Frosty, Charlie Brown.

Well, while skimming across channels this past week, my wife and I came across an obscure animated holiday classic on the Canadian channel. (You've got to love those Canadians, they air the best stuff this time of year...and don't overload you with these 'new' holiday specials that are all CGI and no heart.) But I digress...

That obscure Christmas special I speak of was "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" from 1962. That's right - Mr. Magoo had his own version of a Christmas Carol, with him playing Ebenezer Scrooge, no less.

Now, why am I mentioning all of this back story? Because during one of the songs (yes, there were song numbers), Magoo as Scrooge sings the following line once he's learned about the wonder of generosity:

"Ringle, ringle, coins when they jingle, make such a lovely sound. Give them away and nobody can rob you. "

Well, I've had this one lyric playing around in my head ever since and it really got me thinking. Scrooge learned a very valuable lesson that day - that the items that some of us value so very much, to the point of obsession - money, the latest electronics, etc - are absolutely nothing once we leave this realm, aside from becoming the target of some underhanded grave robber.

That thought doesn't even need to apply to after our deaths. Think of, unfortunately, how many terrible robberies and burglaries we hear about in the news on a daily basis. So many of the times, what do we hear is taken? Money, electronics, fashionable, expensive items.

Remember a ways back we talked about giving things away? Well that song lyric sort of triggered that memory and line of thought for me.

I think Magoo and Scrooge were really on to something.

Hold onto and cherish the things that are truly important in this life - your family, your spouse or significant other, your children, your pets, your friends - all the things that bring love into your life. Therein lies your true value.

As Harry Bailey said in "It's a Wonderful Life" - "to my brother, George. The richest man in town!" Not because of any wealth he had accumulated. After all, he was practically broke, with three kids living in a run down old, drafty house. But because of the lives he enriched simply by being a giving person.

It's not about objects we can have. That just becomes fodder and targets for the jealous and unsavory who want to take it.

Cherish and appreciate those LIVES that you've touched and touched yours. That feeling of love is something nothing and no one can take from you, in this life, or after.

I can't think of a better gift this holiday season than that.

Love to you all.

Fighting hate with hate only fuels more hate

This caught my eye today...

"Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love."

It's a quote from Buddha that makes me think about negativity.

There are countless times where something makes us so angry that it seems the only way we can react to it, and the easiest way to react to it, is to lash out back with just as hateful a thought or word as was thrown at us.

But let's stop for a minute and think about it. When I react to hate with more hate, what have I accomplished? Have I put out the fire and resolved the issue at hand?

Absolutely not.

More times than not, all I'll have ended up doing was feeding the fire, the fire of hate, making it larger, full of even more bad potential.

It's kind of like that saying - "two wrongs don't make a right." Just because someone hates me or hates something I do, is the situation then alleviated by my return of that hate? Nope. It just keeps that wheel turning.

I thought of a recent statement that a friend who's going through a very painful divorce said regarding the situation - "It's very sad when people become consumed by revenge." In this particular case, one person was so upset, and so hateful about the split, that they have become all-consumed by their need for revenge and their need to create as much hurt as they can.

They do so because THEY are hurt. But it certainly has not helped the process, nor the hurt inside of them. My friend understood this, and has been doing their best not to react the same way...not to meet that revenge with more anger, but with an understanding of the pain the other party is going through.

What Buddha tells us to do is to stop for a moment before we react in anger, before we return the hate, and calmly ask ourselves what the right thing to do in the situation is.

If we love, if we forgive, if we show compassion, instead of returning hate with hate, only then can we start to douse the fires of hate that come into our lives.