UBUNTU WOMEN
Time
“After years of wanting to thoroughly clean my house but lacking the time, I found out during this pandemic that wasn’t the reason.”

I laughed out loud when I read that Facebook meme. Then it got me thinking about time and how we choose to use it. While lockdown and social distancing have had some devastating effects, there was one real positive. Suddenly, unexpectedly most of us had the rare commodity of extra time.
The problem of course is the time/money equation. Now that we have time, many of us are scrambling to pay the bills. While this is a real concern, I’m trying not to put my focus there. My mantra these days is “Money is a renewable resource. Time is not.” All the worry in the world won’t improve my finances, so I’ve chosen to embrace the gift of time. I’m also embracing the gift of free online learning.
So far I’ve completed a course on the science of well-being from Yale, and Buddhism and Modern Psychology from Princeton. For the first time since kindergarten, I was fully immersed in enjoying the learning experience rather than focusing on getting a passing grade. I hadn’t even planned to submit the assignments. Because I was absorbed in the learning process and the subject matter, it was easier to learn. In the end I decided to submit the papers and passed both courses. That may have been the biggest lesson of all!
So instead of cleaning the house from top to bottom, and sorting through the thousands of wildlife photographs that are clogging up my hard drive. (For years my husband has been asking me “how many photographs of leopards do you need?” ) I’m learning about rewiring the brain for happiness so I can be even happier in my own life, and share that knowledge with my future Soul Safari guests. I’m using this gift of time to enrich myself and plan for a post COVID future that I feel confident will see my small group Safari business grow.
How are you spending your time windfall? Are you filling it with a long list of “shoulds”? If you are I hope you feel a sense of satisfaction as you check each chore off your list.
I also hope that you give yourself permission to spend at least some time each day doing something that engages you or truly gives you pleasure. That’s time affluence well spent.
Jacquie Gauthier combines her love of nature and of yoga to create the Soul Safari experience
www.soul-safaris.co.za
She’s the author of “The Gift of an Elephant” and “Twenty Eight Elephants and Other Every Day Miracles” available in paperback and e-book formats on Amazon.


