“Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.” ~ Karl Wallenda

There is a lot of talk these days about passion, calling, strengths, and so on. There seems to be very little talk about how to measure these things, though.

As much as I believe in the concept, I grow tired of the vagueness. It’s like dangling the proverbial carrot in front of us. Even identifying areas of passion seems to be a cake mixed with speculation, baked with wishful thinking and frosted with conjecture.

Boo.

So, what if passion was measurable?

I’m pretty sure it is.

For me, the best test of my passion is a simple one. There are things that I do that cause huge spans of time to disappear – these lie within my passions. If I think I’ve invested ten minutes in something, but it’s actually more like two hours, that’s a great indicator. Conversely, there are things that cause the clock to virtually stop… these are probably not within my passions.

I like the quote from Karl Walenda in this post. He calls the passion zone “living.” All else to him was “waiting.”

What do you think?

How do you measure your passions?

To you, what is “living” and what is “waiting?”

“Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph’s character.” ~ Psalm 105:19 (NLT)

We all think we’re ready for the dream to be fulfilled. We get frustrated when we think it’s taking too long. We lose heart when we are tested. Maybe it’s all part of the process.

Some versions of this scripture say that the Word of God tested Joseph.

What if the Word is testing your character.

What if the the Word is proving your character.

What if the the Word is im-proving your character while you wait?

How we react to the journey is up to us, the process pretty much isn’t.

Your character will be tested.

Ask Joseph.

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” ~ T. S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Sometimes it seems like the clock moves faster for some people than others. It especially seems that way when things are taking longer for us than we expect.

The truth is this:

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” ~ C. S. Lewis

Whether you are measuring out your life with coffee spoons or a 60 minute an hour clock, time moves the same speed for all us. We all have the same clock, the same calendar, the same process for preparing for the future.

Preparing, working, waiting and believing is the way it works for all of us. No exceptions. Even when we get weary in the waiting part.

Unless you have a time-machine, you should enjoy the journey.

Enjoy every minute.

Enjoy every hour.

Enjoy every day.

Enjoy every coffee spoon.

And keep preparing. Your appointed time is closer than when you started reading this.

“The vision will still happen at the appointed time. It hurries toward its goal. It won’t be a lie. If it’s delayed, wait for it. It will certainly happen. It won’t be late.” (Habakkuk 2:3 GWT)

People will take over your life if you let them.

How do they do it?

Step 1: They begin by taking over your time.

• When they send a message in one place to say they’ve left a message for you in another place, you know you’re really in trouble. Watch out!

Step 2: They continue by asserting their priorities over yours.

• One hour after asking for something: “Have you had a chance to look at that yet?” Do not mistake urgent for important.

Step 3: They assume they know better than you do.

• Most of the time when someone says something will help you, what they mean is “This will help me, but let’s pretend it helps you too.”

Step 4: When you decline to give in to the demands, they’ll attempt to make you feel bad.

• “I’m not sure why you’d say no to this great opportunity.”
• “I really need your help to ensure this project succeeds.”

Sometimes, we let people take over our lives by entrusting judgment to them. We assume that other people know better than we do. We assume that other people’s priorities are more important than ours.

Sometimes we are wrong.

We should stop that.

For the whole story click here.

Today is my daughter’s birthday. She’s turning 23 and I’m not sure where all the time went. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that long ago that Debbie and I went to the hospital for her birth… but, birthdays don’t lie. Still, I’m not quite sure how it’s possible.

I’m not sad about the time that’s passed as if has gotten away from us in a bad way. It hasn’t in the least. I have no regrets. I have been present not just in her life, but in the details of her life for all of her life. I love her with all my heart and she loves me, too. I’m really not sad at all, just reflective.

Why am I so reflective?

23 years ago we named her Nicole and gave her our family name. This will be her last birthday with our family name.

In June she will marry the man of her dreams. However, long before Jordan became the man of her dreams he was the man of our prayers. For 23 years we have been praying for her mate, believing God for a man that will love and care for her as Christ loves the church. Believing for a man who will make her laugh. A man she can believe in. The man for her.

She found him.

We couldn’t be more thrilled. We are thankful beyond words.

Today, we’re celebrating Nicole’s birthday with a bridal photo shoot. A perfect transition!

March 13^th will always be “Nicole Day” in our home, as it has been for the last 23 years. Next March 13^th will still be “Nicole Day.” We will still be her parents. She will still be our girl. The only thing changing is her family name. While this is our last time to celebrate Nicole Allen Day, next year will be our first year to celebrate Nicole Covarelli Day.

Same girl.

Same birthday.

Different name.

Help us celebrate this year’s “Nicole Day” by following her amazing blog, Healthy Isn’t Hard. Maybe she’ll help you as much as she helps us to stay healthy. She’s well worth following and well worth celebrating!

I love you Nicole Allen. Happy 23^rd birthday!

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” ~ Carl Sandburg

Time. We all wish we had more of it.

More time in the day. More time to do what feeds us. More time to complete that project. More time to think.

You get the point.

Time is a commodity. A precious commodity. If you live 100 years, you only get 5,200 Saturdays on planet Earth. If you’re 20 years old you have spent over 1,000 of them already.

We are all in a race with the clock, a war with the calendar. It’s up to us if we win the race. It’s up to us if we’re victorious over the calendar. The key is being aware that it’s a choice. It’s your choice to say “yes” or “no” when someone or something wants some of your time.  What does a win look like? How do we know if we’ve defeated our foe, the calendar?

Let me put it like this. Time is never borrowed – it’s only spent or invested.

Time spent is that which you will never see again. It speaks of regret. Time invested is purposeful and positive. It speaks of a decision made to use some of our limited time for something that hits the target for our life’s purpose and calling.

On your job, you allow your employer to buy some of your time to work on things that are important to that business. Depending on your employer, your job and your calling that time will either go in the spent column or the invested column. The same is true of everything else in our lives. It’s all time spent or time invested.

You are the only one who can do the accounting properly, and you should do that accounting. Not just with your job, but your relationships, your hobbies and progress on your life-goals.

This brings me to the million dollar questions:

Are you in control of your time, or is it out of control?

What, or who is spending your time for you?

What are you willing to change to be able to invest more time in something valuable?

I hope these words today cause you to put more time in the invested column. I hope these thoughts cause you to be more on-purpose with your days. I hope you find the courage to take account. Time is ticking.

Time invested is a win. Every time.

“Forever is composed of nows.”  ~ Emily Dickinson

Now is an elusive commodity. Blink and it’s a new now. That other now just then is no longer the current now. As quickly as one passes, a new one arrives in its place.

Every time you say “now,” it’s now. Now is always now. Now is never past nor future. It’s always the presently present. It’s not a moment, a second or a minute. It is a now.

Now cannot be held, grasped, elongated or measured. However, now can be seized. As a matter of fact, every one of them can be seized.

How many nows are there in a lifetime? On the one hand, you only have one now. On the other hand, our whole lives are filled with them. A paradox, really.

Philosophical musings aside, we have a choice invest our nows, however many we get, in the people and pursuits that mean the most to us. What we do with each one speaks of our priorities, values and world view. Now is treasure. While we can’t measure now, it measures us, looking into the desires of our hearts.

If you’re human, you have likely blown a few of your past nows on things that don’t matter. Let them go, seize new ones and use them to invest in people and pursuits that matter. No sense beating yourself up now for something that happened then.

Every now is a new opportunity. They don’t come around once a day, once a year or once in a lifetime. They come around all the time, each one bringing fresh possibilities.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.” (Matthew 6:21 MSG)

Treasure now like it matters. It does. Oh, and thanks for taking your last few nows to read this. You can redeem them by making a decision to ride the next one.

Go ahead, seize a now.

Make it count.

Then the next one.

And the next.

And don’t look back.

In a recent article on Discover Magazine Blogs, the author made this astounding statement:

“A lifespan is a billion heartbeats. Complex organisms die. Sad though it is in individual cases, it’s a necessary part of the bigger picture; life pushes out the old to make way for the new. Remarkably, there exist simple scaling laws relating animal metabolism to body mass. Larger animals live longer; but they also metabolize slower, as manifested in slower heart rates…”

I don’t know if this statement can be taken at face value, but…

A billion heartbeats?

What if you really had a billion heartbeats that measured your life?

What would you do with them?

What would you change about your day? Week? Priorities?

“By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” ~ Christopher Columbus

What is your greatest enemy? It’s that which would dare to steal your time, stand in your way and move your focus from what is needful. It’s always easy to spot a waste of time in the rear view mirror. Unfortunately, the world is far fuller of “wish I hadn’t” than focus.

Half the battle is knowing what you’re supposed to be doing. If you’ve gotten that far, take a minute and rejoice. You’re doing better than most. The other half of the battle is doing what you’re supposed to be doing. So *are* you doing what you’re supposed to be doing?

The great news is you have a choice. Every day. Every hour. Every moment. Tick tock. Tick tock.

So what is stealing your time? Don’t allow it. Value the highest and best enough to remain focused on your assignment. It’s your right.

It’s your decision.

A good song is always subject to interpretation as it’s performed or recorded. As they are interpreted, I’ve seen a good songs fall apart and bad songs made to sound as if they’re good ones. Certain elements of musical interpretation that can make or break a song. Here are a few of the many things to consider:

Key. Too low and it’s not sing-able. Too high and it’s painful to the singer and the audience.

Artist. A good song in the hands of the wrong artist quickly becomes a bad song. However, a good song in the hands of the right artist will magnify the song’s greatness. What makes wrong and right artists for songs? Mostly it boils down to two things, style and believability. Is the song in the artists musical comfort zone/ palette? Can the artist make the song his or her story as they “tell” it? Do we believe it?

Arrangement. A four minute guitar solo intro probably isn’t the right answer. Most people would never give the song a chance :^)

Tempo. This is the big one. It’s all about the tempo. While some songs can be done fast or slow, there is a workable range and accompanying style that will make it work. I know of dance producers that would have a crowd in the studio. As they were working on the song in the control room, they’d watch the people in the other room to see when they began to move to the beat. When the crowd started dancing they knew they had it.

So what about a song’s tempo range? Is it so slow that it’s painful? So fast that it’s not able to be enjoyed? Musicians and producers refer to the desired tempo as the groove. There is a comfortable groove for each song to sit where it feels right.

I recently wrote an up-tempo song for a project. When it came time to record the song, I knew it needed to be slower and more meditative. It worked both ways, but there is a slow tempo range that worked as well as a fast tempo range.

Our lives flow like sets of good songs – one after the other. When you hit a spot where something’s not quite right you should first check your tempo. Is it painfully slow? Pick up the tempo. Is it so fast that it’s not able to be enjoyed? Slow it down a bit.

One final note: When an album/CD is being mastered, there is a process needed to decide on the spacing between the songs. Too close together and it doesn’t breathe. Too far apart and it throws off the impact of the next song. This too applies to life…

Life was created to be enjoyed. If you’re not enjoying it, check the tempo and the spacing between the “songs”.

So I guess the question is, “Does life imitate art, or is life an art?”