Last week at church I spoke to two people who each fessed up to feeling they were watching too much TV. Their take not mine. I felt a bit envious! As a serial rest-evader, I thought time in front of the TV sounded rather nice. Where they felt they needed less time in front of their TV, I decided I wanted more time in front of mine!
My wish was granted on Tuesday when I woke up feeling so dreadful, I couldn’t even sit upright. I’m not sure if this was viral or complete exhaustion. But either way, the only option was to succumb to the sanctuary of the sofa for most the day. During this enforced period of sofa hugging horizontality, I indulged in lots of TV. I’ve always had a strict, ‘no daytime TV during the week’ rule as being self-employed requires high levels of self-discipline.
But yesterday I threw that out the window, draw the curtains across them and proceeded to devour two different drama series. Each of these featured trauma, grief, loss and therapy. Right up my street! And I loved them both although one did require a rather large volume of tissues! Fortunately, as a therapist I’m always well stocked in these. And that’s just for me!
Within one of these dramas, I spotted a quote which read,
‘Time is love’.
How incredibly true.
If you want to know where someone’s heart really is, look beyond their words to where they spend their time. Whatever we invest our time, attention and care in, will grow, whether in size, depth, health, value, contentment or a combo. Similarly, whatever we neglect, may subsequently shrink. And this includes us (except where we neglect a healthy diet and may therefore expand).
The health and growth of anything requires a consistent investment of time, attention and care.
Sometimes we fail to invest our time and energy in what we claim is important. This invites further exploration. It could be driven by fear, whether of failure or success. Or we may not be exercising our own agency or right to choose. Or we may not value what we thought we did, as much as we thought. When actions are out of alignment with words these may be revealing a deeper reality.
I fail to consistently invest my all into something I have always professed to be paramount. It is time to get out of my own way. It may help to conduct an in-depth analysis of where I am investing myself. If I can identify where I am over investing, I can make the necessary withdrawals to re-invest where I really want them.
Time really is love. (except for the obligatory washing up/bill paying/adulting). If we are not investing our time in what we profess to love, we may well wonder why. And we may need to address this by moving our investments around. Or pay the price of failing to grow where we fail to invest.