Reflections on Time
A few reflections on time
Maybe because I am getting marring in 36 hours I am feeling a bit reflective today.
Time is such a strange almost unmeasurable thing yet it is measured.
We don’t really notice it or even talk about it but each and everyday our time passes and passes fast!
How many times have you said you are going to do something yet another year has passed and you still haven’t done it?
THE JAGUAR
Years ago I knew a man that always wanted a Jaguar. All his conversation on cars always revolved around this damned car. He knew the color, the model and even the interior he wanted. Yet year after year he talked endlessly about owning his first Jaguar rather than the ‘make-do’ Ford he always drove.
His wife supported him and would tell him endlessly to go and buy the car of his daily dreams. She would say we can drive here and there and drive everywhere in the new Jaguar. He would always reply that he would buy at some point but not just yet.
Finally his wife died after 48-years of marriage. Two weeks after she passed away he went and bought himself a Jaguar XK sport in racing green with the cream color interior he had always talked about. The strange thing was he rarely drove the car after his wife died because he felt loaded with guilt driving this dream car alone.
I did wonder – is he like most of us and feels life will just carry on forever?
HAIRDRESSING - THE END
For years I wanted to stop being a hairdresser. It was a lot of endless pressure and too much hassle owing my salons. Name a business problem and I can bet you a million dollars I’ve had that problem during those years.
I’d thought about leaving hairdressing but it had brought me a lot of good things in life that still needed to be paid for.
THE BIG HOUSE
I’m not sure if I ever told you this but I built my own house with my own hands. God it was massive. My kitchen could hold 30 people very easily around a table. The garden was beautiful not only was it around one acre but it even had it's own orchard that filled out every year with the most beautiful apples. My hairdressing job and business was paying for everything so how could I leave this and do anything else at over 40 years of age? I had to force the change and I made the change after a lot of thought. Of course the house like the life above that passed away came to an end and had its time.
81 YEARS OLD
Recently I spoke to an 81-year old man. He has been married for over 54 years. I’ve no idea how it’s lasted because him and his wife fight like cat and dog. We sat in the final days of the summer sunshine and spoke about life. Well he did anyway I just sat and listened to him. He talked about everything he had never done but talked about things he like to do. I told him I was getting married in New York. He told me that he would love to go to New York. His wife hates travel unless it’s France but when she gets to France she wants to come home because it’s full of French!
He talked for over 2-hours about his regrets. He never called any of them regrets he called them things he wished he’d done. His job at been for the government and had worked long long hours and then spent his time outside work hours drinking and drinking a lot.
At the end of the chat he told me to take life by the horns and live it. I told him I was and he simply said he wished he could live his life all over again.
STUFF ISN'T LIFE
I learnt a huge lesson almost 10-years ago during the end of my first life. It was the lesson of recognition. I had to recognize that my life wasn’t really made up of things I had gathered and collected but really should have been made up of things that I loved and appreciated and they loved and appreciated me. That taught me to stop gathering and start creating a life. I feel my second life is more myself rather than what others may have wanted for me.
LIFE
I do think about time and life. I have even thought about the moment when life ends – why not no one escapes it do they? That awareness has allowed me to have more focus on the life I live right now and the time i have remaining.
How do I create what I need in my life? How do I live a life that is truly happy and fulfilled? How to I buy those little things in life that I don’t really need I just want to have them? After all everything has to be paid for right?
CREATE
You cannot create a better life sitting in endless meditation asking any universe anywhere to provide what you demand – it’s just not going to happen. Yet at the same time you have to know exactly what you want to be able to create what you want for your life.
Sometimes than can mean huge changes, sometimes less than huge, yet if you are not getting the results you really want why would anyone resist making changes.
LEAVING MARKETING?
I’ve thought about leaving the marketing industry for a time now and here’s why. As someone that has had to make profit and sales from his own businesses to support a family and of course to help fund the life I want, I have had to find out how to get results with almost everything.
How to get customers when I had none. How to give customers what they want when I have no idea what they want and so on. The results were always way above average and that made me happy.
Yet the reason I have thought about leaving this industry many times over the years is clear when I tell you. I am never sure how serious business people take their business. I mean the business of being busy and not just making a wage but creating a real long-term and sustainable business for life.
IGNORING ADVICE
People ask and pay for advice but then act is if it isn’t what they want to hear. I never get why anyone would ask someone like myself with 31-years experience at the top of his game. I have results falling out of my pockets, ears and brain and some don’t take the proven advice.
It’s almost like a guy that wants to climb Everest but wants to ignore all the best ways to conquer the mountain, as he wants to do it his own way. Why?
BUSINESS AND LIFE
Business is like life and life is time. You get time to liVe your life and if you don’t live your life no matter what happens it closes at some point. Business is different but it is still time based. You have time to get your business started, up, running, stable, growing, innovating and giving you a life for all the trouble it is and will give you. If you don’t do what is needed to be done the time for the business runs out.
THE POST OFFICE
I knew a man that had a post office. The place had been run into the ground so he got the place cheap. Despite asking me for advice he ignored it and did his won thing. He bought two Range Rovers. He bought new windows. He bought new this and new that. He went and bought cheap stock rather than what the customer was used to. When the tax bill arrived he had no cash to pay for anything. When the second tax bill arrived the taxman was less than patient. He never saw the third visit he was shut down within 9-months. He had his time and blew it despite knowing what needed to be done.
REFLECTION ON TIME
But like I said I am being reflective today and being aware of my time on Earth so far and I can share with you it's been a powerful experience far.
I SAW HER
In 2009 I spotted a beautiful looking woman in London. She looked foreign with long dark think hair and olive skin. I don’t think she really saw me but I wanted to get to know her more. Despite being a train wreck from my divorce I pursued her until she agreed to have dinner with me in London. It’s funny I knew how much I liked her and grew to love her quickly despite her holding back but that is a very Georgian thing!
After dinner I went back to Cheshire and then I decided to run away to California for a while so although we Skyped now and then there was nothing as far as a relationship. I did want her but I am the world’s worst dater!
So when I came home from the USA I asked her to meet for dinner. The rest is history and now she is to become my wife this Thursday (September 17th 2015). I could just have easily allowed my shy nature to hold me back or my lack of confidence at that time. I wanted and chased until I got!
I have learnt in life if you need changes you have to make the changes, no one does it for you. I have learnt in life that if you want something you have to go after it. I have learnt in life from watching others that waiting for the right time never happens until that time has passed forever. I have learnt that to create the things we want in life we have to become a creator. I also learnt the harder way that when I really needed help I had to ask for help despite my self-pride always holding me back.
And really that is it for now.
You know me and all about me.
I'm heading out now to claim my new wife.
Your friend in life.
Alan Forrest Smith