A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living: Time

I started this journey of a sense-ble look at healthy living about eight months ago. Time really flies when you’re doing something you enjoy. However, the time is finally here — the final installment of this series about senses. Yes, the eighteenth sense is the sense of time.

Both my father and his father had great opinions whenever family and friends complained that they never had enough time to get things done. My grandfather would say, “There are twenty-four hours in a day, with eight hours to work and eight hours to sleep … what in the (bleep) are they doing with the other eight hours?” My father would say, “With all the modern conveniences we now have to save time, why can’t they find time to get things done?”

Biologically, there is no sensory organ to detect time. There are many, many theories on how the sense of time really works (none are proven). How I perceive time is totally different than how you perceive time. My perception of time is based on my experiences. The fact that I look at and use time differently than others is no great revelation. We all have different experiences, and that’s how our choices are made.

All of the seventeen previously-refracted senses influence how I manage my time. Although, one concept that my grandfather, father, others, and I fail to acknowledge is the sense that we will always have time. This is what can derail all plans. Keep putting things off until later may be problematic.

Some may say I started my journey to a healthier lifestyle late in life. I was forty-five and a physical wreck when I found TOPS. I had many of the health problems that are associated with obesity.

It’s never too late to start making positive changes. Yes, it would have been easier if I had started developing better habits at a younger age, but at least I finally started. Some of my colleagues who knew me when I was in my forties are pleasantly surprised that I recently celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday. They thought I wouldn’t make it to my fifties. This is proof, once again, that it’s never too late to start making changes.

On any point of a journey, especially when the traveling seems to get rough, take the time to reassess and make a course correction. It is truly the sense-ble thing to do. It’s alright to start over; I have many times.

I can quote many clichés about time; however, one phrase that I can wrap my arms around is the line my wife included in a song she wrote based on a TOPS retreat. She wrote, “This is YOUR time to make your dreams come true. If you want things to be different, it’s really up to you!”

Now, that certainly makes sense.

This is part 18 and the final blog of the multipart series, “A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living.”

Missed the beginning of our journey through the human senses? Check out the rest of A SENSE-ble Look at Healthy Living.