Paces.

Your step at a time.

Life is paced — it exists in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years. While time in theory is fixed — 60 seconds make a minute, 365 days make a year; in reality our experience of time is very personal.

Just like our footsteps are reportedly unique, so also our paces in life are non-identical. Likewise, if you planted bananas and oranges on the same day, you wouldn’t expect them to bear fruit at the same time. I saw a video recently that put it nicely ‘everyone in this world works based on their timezone’. Sometimes however, we get so caught up in the rat race, that we forget that the only person we’re really running against is ourselves.

I’m working actively on slowing down this year, internally, by taking the time to put down my thoughts and reflect on them. The concept of time has been on my mind for a few weeks now. Here are a few worth sharing.

You will not be ready (for anything) one day sooner than you will be ready. So don’t fret. Enjoy the process of becoming. But know that when you are ready it will be beautiful. In reality, readiness is nothing more than a state of mind. Everything else up until that time is really just preparation towards being ready.

Don’t worry about ‘lost’ opportunities. If you were not ready, then the opportunity was not for you. It might seem rather blithe; but really, shouldn’t life be that simple sometimes?

If it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t. ‘Almost’ doesn’t cut it. Actually, almost never does. ‘Right’ for someone else isn’t the same as ‘right for you’. You’ll save more time listening to your intuition than trying to argue yourself into, or out of something.

There’s more to life outside the four walls of wherever you presently are. This could be physical, geographical, emotional or psychological. Don’t be afraid to move. Make time to experience new things — read a new book, move to that part of town or new city you’ve secretly wanted to, make new friends.

Experience is great, but experience can be overrated. After all, experience learning the wrong thing becomes a liability. We tend to think of experience more in terms of length, than quality. The fact that you’ve spent 3 years doing a particular thing doesn’t automatically make you better than someone else who began 6 months ago. At the end of the day, quality is what counts.

Ultimately, time really is everything. You can spend your time tying shoelaces, or building castles. Whatever you decide to do with it is up to you.