I briefly mentioned in a previous blog ‘1000 minutes’, I’d like to share with you what inspired me and what it symbolises.
My trip to Yogyakarta was a beautiful time, the learning, the being with some lovely people, the vibe of the city and the day trips out to the Temples. Borobudur and Prambanan and two old Temples, one celebrating Hinduism and the other Buddhism. I have no religion particularly, I believe each person has the right to chose what they wish to follow, that religion has and still does create so much divide amongst people and yet they all follow similar beliefs. Each religion has its 'commandments' to aim to live by and unfortunately often dire consequences if you don’t. That’s why I veer towards the Buddhist way - for me it is really more about taking responsibility for your own actions for you, not for fear of some higher power and not following the right path ultimately leads to your own suffering, by your own doing. But that’s me and I respect what anyone wishes to believe in as long as please please please be a nice person to all other beings that live on the Earth - and of course I do include all animals and nature within that. Yes I do kill ants and mosquitoes, not much else though if I can help it, and I have negative thoughts towards people (and myself) and I work towards not having them - but overall I’m a nice person and don’t wish harm anyone....
So, whilst in the Temples many thoughts came to me, not all of them I remember, but this one did.
These feats of architecture were built over 1000 years ago, in a time when there were no cranes as we have now, no machinery to help break the rock and no CAD systems to view the design and architecture before stone was put in place.
I marvel at their achievements that have stood the test of time unless unfortunately destroyed at the hands of others.
1000 years ago, the people from then are long forgotten, what they built reminds us they existed. There are few stories of who did what from those times, no photographic evidence of who decided what and how they slowly brought these amazing places to life.
1000 years
How many people in that time have been on our planet ?
1000 years
What will this planet look like in that time in the future?
What will be left from us now, in 1000 years what beings will look and have the same questions I have?
Will there be any planet at all!...
This lead me to thinking about how I live my day to day life, the times in the past I have spoken badly to someone who really had nothing to do with the emotion I was in at the time, the times I hold on to something someone says to me and stew on it for way longer than is worth while.
How I’ve criticised and been hard on myself, not enjoyed the moment and not lived to my values....
We have only so much time on this earth and why do I want to spend it being unkind to me and to others when being nice to each other is way better! Not saying to not have bad days, or feel the 'negative’ emotions but why waste my precious minutes being in that space for too long?
My precious minutes.
1000 of them
Each day
That’s on average all I have to spend each day.
1000 minutes.
We sleep approximately 7 or so hours, which means we have 16 hours something awake. I tweaked the maths to make it exact - 1000 minutes.
We have roughly 1000 minutes each day to be awake.
Not just to have our eyes open and go through the motions of life, but to be awake, to live fully in the moment. I stopped and thought what a waste if I spend many of those minutes angry over a situation that is out of my control, to get caught up in story telling, drama, gossip, in paranoia, in anxiety and taking things too damn seriously....
I don’t want to spend my minutes that way, Now it doesn’t mean I am going to go around laughing all day!! What it means to me is that I am going to use those minutes to the best of my ability both in and out of work time. It means when I have my moments of negativity and can hear the little voice in my head rabbiting away and I feel like a dog chasing it’s tail being stuck in the emotion, I can stop - and ask myself
Is this really how I want to spend my minutes?
I wanted a tattoo done in Indonesia but didn’t know where or when. A few days later I was arranging to meet a friend in Jakarta and our timing to meet was based around him going to have a new tattoo.... Perfect
Seribu Menit
Now inked on my right wrist, a permanent reminder to not spend my precious minutes on things I cannot change and to use my time wisely which may be sitting and simply watching the world go by.
Thank you