A personal timeline

Is anyone else feeling this year is already flying by? In a about a month I’ll be finished my second semester of school. And in about a month too I’m going to be 22. Wow. Funny enough it wasn’t really those two things that made me think about the passing of time. I was driving, about a week ago, thinking about what should be the topic of my next post and as I was reflecting on my recent experiences and thoughts and putting all those things together, it became clear that the message I was receiving was that I needed to sit down and just set a timeline for myself. I have been wanting to do that for a while but, man, is it easy to procrastinate on that. Setting a time commitment is the stepping stone from dreams to reality and I think it is the weight of that fact that often causes me to hesitate. It puts you in a place where your integrity is then in the balance; does your word really mean something? A specific thought helped me to finally start: Life has already begun to set deadlines for you, why don’t you make some for yourself?

Deadlines. I thought I’d research the origins of this word and I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising to me that it comes from something dark. It was a literal line in prison camps where people were killed. Yikes. Somehow though this term has made its way to be commonplace in our society today, but with a much different meaning.

When you stop and think about it it’s incredible how many deadlines have been placed on us in our lives. Our whole childhood and adolescence is spent in a constant cycle of deadlines as we complete each year of our education. Ideally we should learn to see the value in them and embrace them but usually we end up shuddering at the thought of them. And then there are all sorts of deadlines that we experience at our workplace. And then, on top of that, there are the social pressures that try to impose certain deadlines on us. And then of course there’s the biggest deadline of them all: death. We are all moving towards this deadline with no exception (I guess here the term is a little more fitting). Scary to think sometimes hey? Yet it is actually this end that allows us to fully appreciate this life, to seek to make the most out of it.

I decided to think back and recognize the positive impact that deadlines have had on my life. Excluding school. Because it’s really not a thing of the past for me since I’m right in the midst of it, and because it still, often than not, gives me a reason to dislike deadlines. I do recognize how much school has taught me though, so I’d like to make a small shootout to teachers everywhere. I know most of them have the best intentions at heart. Anyways, here are the two recent positive experiences I’ve had with deadlines.

1. This blog. I would be lying if I said it added no stress to my life at all, but its benefits really outweigh its momentary challenges at times. In relation to the main point, blogging with a commitment to post every two weeks has forced me to search for the depth and novelty in my sometimes-seemingly-dull weeks. I had considered initially doing this blog by keeping things loose and writing whenever an inspiration would come to mind, but then I had to think realistically. When inspirations come we usually are not in the right state of mind to act on them. They often drift away as easily as they come. Having a deadline however would push me to be more intentional in my search for something to share each couple of weeks. So far it has served as a great reminder to me that I don’t have to wait to feel inspired or ready enough to do something or give something. I can find the ways to inspire and motivate myself, and to find and recognize the things that I have been given to give. I think that is a much more happier and productive way of thinking and living.
2. Being a missionary in Costa Rica for 3 months. Leading up to this point I had been fortunate enough to visit a few different countries already, two of them with the intention to do some small form of service work. I cherish those experiences as they really helped me to learn that there is joy to be found from working hard, together with others, for the sake of someone other than yourself. Even though our projects were rather small we’d be thanked profusely for our investment. Truthfully though, I think we, in fact, were the ones who got much more out of it. When I was given the opportunity to be a missionary though, about a year ago now, I was going with a different kind of intent. This time about I wasn’t there to help improve the external environment, I wanted to help people to change their internal environment, the way they see and relate with themselves, others and the world around them. I worked alongside an incredible organization called CARP that has brought new life and truth to university students around the globe. At the core, their motivation is to bring peace and unity in this world by helping us all learn how to restore our relationship with God, as one between that of a parent and their child, and thus with each other, as brothers and sisters. There is really so much that I could write about my experience there but I have to stick to the point. The point was that I was only going to be there for 3 months. The goals and hopes I had for myself there could only be possible at that time; this specific experience would only come once. You could of course say that about anything but it was then when the gravity of that truth really hit me. It was there I really had to challenge my tendency towards procrastination and this kind of coasting life-style in general. So, recognizing the fact that there was a clear conclusion really helped me to make every day count and to reach new heights, and overall made the experience so impactful and memorable.

Even with those experiences, I still don’t consider myself that great at time management and goal setting. My most recent results in school have sadly been evidence of that. But we won’t get into that. I am always going to have to work on those things, and I felt setting a timeline for myself was the next step for me to have the results in my life that I want to see rather than them just remaining wishful thinking.

For most of us we have allowed the world around us to set the timeline of our lives. However if we only let that be the case, are we really the ones leading our lives? I want to encourage you to think about that. Don’t be afraid to give things that you want to do in your life, or simply in this one year, a time frame and a place in your life’s timeline. One way you could look at it is seeing it as “future reality”: it’s real but it just hasn't happened yet! Your goals aren’t guaranteed to become manifest but it will at least help you to be moving towards something. It might take time but eventually I believe we can all live the lives we are dreaming to live.

I would also like to leave a small note about the current CIG missionaries in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Czech Republic. They have been making incredible effort during these first few months of the year and have been sharing their experience and victories on their website: www.cigmission.org/

I know they’d appreciate it if you would check it out and especially if you could donate something small to support their efforts. Thanks!