Making room for a spontaneous fluid sense of time in our structured lives.

It is important to maintain a spontaneous fluid sense of time in our structured lives. A fluid sense of time allows opportunities that would otherwise be a stillbirth.

My complex life demands I schedule my efforts to achieve my goals. Yet I can miss life’s greatness if I don’t stretch my sense of time to include fluidity.
I must balance my sense of spontaneity with my need to structure and define time.

Recently, my husband and I spent a Sunday looking at real estate to assist our son in buying an entry-level house. The Realtor, a Korean woman, saw my husband’s marathon t-shirt and talked with him about completing a 10k. She then invited us to a potluck at her house later that afternoon.

Although we had tickets to a theater event that evening we decided to stretch time and drop by. We were glad we did.

We dropped into a culturally rich experience. We met her community of friends and family, ate delicious Korean foods, and shared very stimulating conversation. When she gave us a gracious tour of her house, she showed us her newly built piano room and treated us to a musical concert.

We would have missed so much if we had not stretched time to take in a spontaneous possibility. I want to always find ways to stretch time to see the beauty of other people. Sometimes it can be as short as a five minute conversation. I want to always be open to the generosity of sharing a meal in the middle of this and that.