Eliminating the Insignificant

Time is limited, and the things that would take our time are limitless. We need to ” eliminate the insignificant.” We need to be more selective in our choices, more discriminating as to trivia, more attentive to the things that mean most—for we never have time enough to do or ought to do. As John Burroughs said, “I still find day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”

Aside from al that presses in the present, we must also take time to pause and plan and think ahead for the future. When we shoot at a moving target, we must shoot ahead if are to hit the mark. If we are only trying to meet the immediate moment, we see things only as they are—partly or altogether past. Many centuries ago Seneca said: “Even if we paid strict attention, life would soon get ahead of us; but as we are now, life finds us lingering and passes us by as if it belonged to another, and though it ends on the final day, it perishes every day.”

We have to take time to think, to reflect, to appraise the past, to explore beyond the preset, tjo plan the future. “There must be,” as Massilion said, “a certain desire of improvement and of acquiring instruction; a serious turn of mind, opposed to everything frivolous; a habit of retirement and reflection; a methodical arrangement of life…” And the faster the pace and the greater the pressure, the more we need solid foundation and our roots down deep.

We have to live thoughtfully and be discriminating as to everything that takes are time. We must eliminate the insignificant, the inconsequential, the irrelevant. We must not let our lives be broken into small pieces that get lost along the way, but live so that we can see a pattern, a plan, a purpose—so that each motion and moment has meaning.