When I was in high school, I came across this quote that I loved so much, I remember writing it down and staring at it for weeks to memorize it. I still know it by heart:
When you come to the edge of all the light you have, know that one of two things will happen: either there will be something solid for you to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
A quick google shows me I didn’t memorize it perfectly, but you get the gist. That sentence got me through more stress and uncertainty than I can properly give it credit for.
Those kinds of words – words that change you, that after a single reading, you know will change your life going forward – those words don’t come around often. So when you get smacked with something particularly impactful, it’s hard to ignore it.
Vivre sans temp mort.
To live without wasted time (or literally, without dead time).
Ugh. I am making it that big, that massive because, you guys. Four words. Punch. Right in the gut.
It is a constant battle to convince myself, in many situations, to keep going. I find myself giving in too often to weekends like this most recent one, where I don’t leave my apartment for the day, where I spend it instead in a book or a magazine or a movie or a TV series. Order food in, stay in my PJs, leave the chores and errands and everything else waiting to be done another day.
It is SO easy, isn’t it? I can’t speak for you coupled-off ones, but for us singletons, it is really easy to just not, especially when there’s no one watching. Not shower. Not run for groceries. Not do the laundry that’s piling up, or the dishes. Not workout. Not participate in the world around you for a bit.
I can’t be the only one who feels this way? (Oh god, please tell me I’m not.)
So, more often than not, the only reason I get a lot done is because I push myself into it. And it’s not just chores – it’s going to this yoga class I signed up for. Going on a walking tour next weekend in the East Village. Going to drinks for a new(ish) friend’s birthday after work. Every fiber of me is craving sweatpants and red wine and my own four walls. But that, friends? That is wasted time.
Not that having Me Time is a bad thing, by any means. I’m the girl who travels internationally on her own. I have no problem with Me Time. I have a problem with doing nothing but laying on my couch/bed and mainlining entire seasons of 30 Rock in that Me Time.
So these words – discovered as randomly as anything else found on the web (have you heard them before?) – these words won’t soon leave me. I’ve never been that girl, but I would seriously consider getting these four words, just seventeen letters, tattooed on me. The inside of my wrist or someplace else hipster so I’d always see them (unlike my other tattoo, which is adorbs but conveniently out of eyeshot in most occasions).
Because every day, that is my goal. To not waste any part of a given day, even the parts meant to be without structure or real purpose. After a while, that wasted hour becomes a day becomes a week becomes you never did those things you said you’d do. And I have no desire to wake up one day with a list of things I didn’t do. If they’re important enough, if they’re meaningful enough to me, I will push through. I will change out of my sweatpants, finish my glass of red wine and get to it.
Vivre sans temp mort, indeed.