Think It Through
Weekly Reading Topic for August 31, 2019: Think It Through
Well, good morning, love!
I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:
What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?
The answer was: “Think It Through”
What follows is your Weekly Reading.
Weekly Reading │ Think It Through
Q: What do you mean, “think it through?”
A: It would be lovely, healing, and weirdly satisfying this holiday weekend to Think It Through. This means that you time travel, in a way, back to, let’s say, the early eighties. Those of you who weren’t around then, let me paint the picture for you.
No cell phones. When you wanted to talk to someone on the phone, it was a total crapshoot whether you would succeed or not. At best, someone would pick up the phone after one or two rings, and it may or may not be the person you wanted to speak to. Phone calls were a bigger deal then than they are today, and they were actually pretty formal in most cases. There was a lot of smallish talk to get through before you could even ask for the person to whom you wanted to speak.
At worst, the phone would ring for ages, thirty, forty times, before you gave up. Because obviously, either no one was home, or they weren’t within earshot of the insanely loud phone ring, or they were within earshot but had better things to do than pick up and see who was calling. You would hang up, and have to try again, and again, because unless someone answered, there was no way to leave a message that you had even called.
And there’s the opportunity for us Time Travelers: the opportunity to Think It Through. When you called someone forty years ago (!!!!), you thought it through. You called with the expectation that you might NOT get what you wanted. You planned your call. You thought about the time, the things going on in that person’s world, and in your world, that would make it more or less likely to have the conversation you wanted to have.
You didn’t call at dinner, or when an important game was on TV. You didn’t call on holidays unless you were calling family. You thought it through and then rolled the dice.
And if you didn’t get the call you wanted? You had other plans ready and waiting. You never, ever assumed that you were going to have that conversation. Instant gratification was unlikely.
So you had other pre-internet ideas about what to do, instead. You gardened, or took a bike ride, or cleaned out the gutters. You went grocery shopping or walked the dog. You leaned on the fence and talked to Mrs. Olson about her maple trees and her dogs. (Well, that’s what I did, anyway.)
It’s a good time this weekend to take a break from 2019 and feel a little bit like we’re back in those days, those days when time stretched out lazily; when a day took a whole 24 hours to finish up. Now, a day lasts about an hour (and no, that’s not just getting older, that’s a fact, because time is a perception, not a reality, and our perception of time moving faster than it used to makes it … true).
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So let’s think it through. How do we build more early-eighties time into our day?
First, we think about our conjoined twin, our device, and we kiss it goodbye for a little. Just put it in its charger for a couple of hours, and power it off. It really may help. Then take that sudden unplugging as an opportunity to rediscover something that requires Thinking it Through.
Because there are lots of things in our lives right now that are getting lost in the shuffle, left aside for “someday when I have time.” We’re running out of time, though, and we need to save it NOW, for NOW, not for later. We can’t hoard time, we must use time.
We had more time 40 years ago, although those of us who remember it probably remember how panicked we all were about how compressed and weird the world was getting, how fast it seemed, how many advances and changes were afoot. True. Multiply that by ten thousand and you’re approaching the reality we live in now.
But we can pause, and Think It Through, if we choose. There’s still time to live your life as it is, where it is, with the people you have.
If you put aside your device this weekend and feel uncomfortable with who, what, where, and why of your when, contemplate this:
Maybe you’ve got some changes to make.
Think it Through, and take the first obvious step. Usually, the first step is to clean up a little, whether you are making a meal, drawing a bath, or walking down the street to your friend’s house to see why they’re not picking up the phone.
This weekend is a time for deep rest: rest of the mind, as well as the body.
If you’re reading this on your device, well, of course, you are. That’s OK. You can still use it. But taking a little break? Might actually be the rest you need, the break from the labor of staying connected 24/7.
Dream a little with me, of that lazy day at the end of summer 40, or even 60 years ago, when time seemed to drone on like the bees in the trees and the wind in the leaves. When the air was still and heavy with moisture, and every breath felt like it took minutes. Feel the crunch of corn on the cob in your mouth, the slippery salty butter, the crunch of the cucumbers and the char on the grilled meat. It was all a break, a time to really think it through: the harvest, the school year, the fall chores around the house, all the things that must be done to live a good life.
It’s time for us to recapture that because it’s what we deserve. So think it through. What do YOU need a break from this Labor Day? Unplug, and think it through.
And if you call and the phone just rings and rings? It’s because I’m outside, drifting on the hammock and watching the geckos catch bugs.
Happy Labor Day.
I am always here to serve in any way I can.
Much Love to You,
Molly
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