I’ve had many seasons in my life, but they just seem to come faster and faster. What I’m not sure of is whether it’s just a perception that comes with having more years’ experience and time speeds up or if it’s because we are causing so many changes. Since we have such a broad audience of CFers, family of CFers, and friends and those generally interested in things we experience, this is a topic for all of us.
I remember when our 9-week grade cards took forever and a day to come around in elementary school. Then in high school, things started to revolve more around semesters, but we still had the 9-week crutch to break things up. I was in and out of college so many semesters, that whole thing is a mess to me, but I can tell you that my last year of college (31 credit hours) was both the longest and shortest year of my life! That speed has only been surpassed by the months that have gone blazing by since. We’ve been to Tennessee for a week, Ohio for a weekend, and nearly tripled the work that comes across my path for work since graduation.
Where does the time go?
All of this speeding up has me concerned about how much time we all have left. Sure, it’s likely decades, but how much time will it seem like and can I get everything done that I both need and want to in that amount of time? I’m not the least bit concerned that our newly combined efforts at running our house and business will go dreamily, both with our lifestyle and our financial planning for what the future holds. It’s something more vague than that, and it’s really hard to put my finger on. It’s short of dread, but it’s there. Is this reverborating with anyone yet?
We have so much that I know we want to accomplish that seem so far away, but with how fast life seems to be speeding by, maybe everything is just around the corner. We don’t want to spend our time and energy squabbling over where to go or what to buy or even who we will be in the future, but things also don’t just happen on their own without planning and effort.
Fatboy’s effort
I’m a self-diagnosed workaholic; semi-self-diagnosed, really, because Beautiful has had concerns about it more than a few dozen times. My working until I have nothing left to give has landed me on IVs a good dozen times since she’s known me. The pressure is tenfold as a man, a real man, who takes his responsibility to be a provider for his woman, regardless of her income.
I suppose that a significant portion of the mental anguish I put myself through is knowing how well we’d be set if I worked an entire year billing my professional rates for 40 hours per week and being equally aware that isn’t going to happen, this year at least. Next, I slap myself silly when I remember how much I was making when I was hired at my corporate job and how much that increased. Finally, I kick myself into next week when I remember that I was unemployed and soon got a job making $8/hr when we started dating, earning a mere $12k that year.
How unbelievably close-minded I must be to even consider being either impatient or remorseful about our situation that we’ve been so richly blessed to be in today! We are living the American and Canadian dream together in one household with each year being better than the last. There hasn’t been a single year with Beautiful in my life that she hasn’t brought health, education, and prosperity to us. Not one in nearly 9 years!
A season to grow
With this leap of faith that we took this week, “giving up” her decent salary with confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. Im confident that:
- we will be happier
- we will be healthier
- we will be more effective in everything we do as more constant companions in our work
- we willย be rewarded for our faith in every area we have confident assurance of good things
That summarizes our season, so I ask you, “what season are you in and what do you have assurance of that bringing to your life?”
