Tag: time

End of Life is Like A Fine Sunset

To answer the questions asked in the previous post about when and how we disengage from frenzied life, I gathered some very wise responses from thoughtful friends.  I particularly liked these two:

  • Bernard Berenson writes that ‘ the end of life should be like a fine sunset’. I’m not sure that’s what our community fosters, but yet it is what I seek and try to make reality. Our community wants us to keep going and giving and doing. Doing what we always did and more so.That is how many residents see their lives and what administration rewards and recognizes.  

Actually most of us are not at the end of our lives yet. These are our last years, yes. But aware of that as I am, I want to make the best of these last years and to me that doesn’t mean doing what I used to do. It means trying and being and doing something new and, more so, being what I always have been but never took or had the time to realize.

  • Balance in our frenetic world requires paying attention to those signals of feeling rushed, pushed, holding our breath, feeling our shoulders up near our ears.  My mantra has been you have time or there is enough time.  The Dalai Lama long ago cautioned us not to be misled in thinking we have to keep pace with our technical devices.  At another time he advised that There is more to life than increasing its speed. 

Aren’t I lucky to have such amazing, thoughtful friends? 

Time… it’s all relative

The time is 3:15am at home in Kennett Square according to my Fitbit whose time change technology has overwhelmed me. The bedside clock which our cabin steward usually sets for us says 8:15am which maybe means she forgot to set it last night, because my phone says it is 7:15am and I try to keep it set to ship time. I was awakened two hours ago by Bob’s clicking camera capturing the sunrise. When he saw me move, he cheerily announced that it was 5:15am today, but that it would be 4:15 am at this time tomorrow, as we will set the clocks back another hour tonight. If I weren’t so disoriented, I would toss him overboard—especially since he dragged me out of bed at midnight? to see Orion hanging low in the ink black sky. I have no idea if I have slept at all or well, and now my stomach insists that yesterday’s dinner was long ago and breakfast closes at 9 am.

Help me, please. We arrive in NYC at 7 am Saturday, at which point ship time and Kennett square time should both be 7am. If there is a 4-hour difference now, how many more times must we set our clocks back one hour?