NOW vs. ALWAYS

I took an online scriptwriting course a long while ago. We'd get on a chat forum and do speedwriting and critiquing each other's work. It was great; people from all over the world.  One of the guys called me "binary Phil" because my characters were overly dramatic.  Indeed there is an element of "0" or "1"-ness in my personality, and black and whiteness-ness. So it's no surprise that much of my blog posts seem that way too. It's just me, not much I can do about it.

Anyhoo.

I was driving somewhere recently, hurriedly, the focus of my NOW moment filled with elements of time, geography and information. And thoughts; a lot of thoughts. Then a quiet internal voice switched on and said "Focus on things that are ALWAYS." Weird.

Then the lightbulb.

I started to verbalize:

I will ALWAYS love my wife.
I will ALWAYS love my children.
I will ALWAYS cherish my parents.
I will ALWAYS love God.

I've written about the Eternal Now before, and this is really a riff on the same thing, but something about ALWAYS struck me. And most interestingly, the things I verbalised, had nothing to do with places, or time, or thoughts.  Feelings and beings.  Solid truths and convictions that I will not waver from.

Makes the NOW moments (finish this project, get to the meeting on time, pay bills, pick up kids) really trivial by comparison. I know life demands that we take care of the practicalities, and I'm not espousing the abandonment of taking care of the day to days of life.

I'm more interested in the FOCUS of life. The NOW moments or the ALWAYS moments.

Now here's another thought. What about focusing on the ALWAYS moments NOW.

I will always love my wife NOW.
I will always love my children NOW.

In Covey's 7 Habits, there is the time management quadrants: Urgent, Not urgent, Important, Not important.

So I guess let's make urgent, prioritize, the things that are important, and not be led by things that are indeed urgent, but perhaps not as important....by a long shot.