Don't Treat Summer Like Another Item On Your To-Do List

I find it curious that several of my friends are walking around saying, "Isn't it a shame that summer is almost over?"  They've been making these comments since the first week of July. For me, summer always begins on July 1 and finishes on September 1, so how can summer be almost over during the first couple of weeks of July?

Lately, I've been finding that time seems to go by faster than it used to.  Sometimes, I'll be on Facebook, and it will seem like I've looked at so many statuses and scrolled through so many profiles (and wasted so much time), but then I'll go back to the Homepage and see something I commented on, and I'll be happy to know it had been only six minutes earlier! I think it's because we are all so busy these days.  We need to cram so many things into one day that now suddenly a week feels like a month. I think it's all the multitasking.  More time seems to pass by than actually has because not only do we still need to do our chores and all the things we used to do, but now we have added the extra tasks of checking our e-mails, our Facebook Page, and, of course, the most necessary responsibility of all: keeping up with our cell phones, I-Pods, and our various gadgets. We've added all this technology and all these gizmos that we supposedly NEED, yet meanwhile, we'd lived perfectly fine before any of them had even been invented.

When feeling overstressed, it wouldn't hurt to get out of ourselves and get immersed in the way life was lived before we had a To-Do List that measured from the ceiling to the floor. For example, in Anais Nin's Diaries, Anais discusses a typical summer night in her life similar to this:  "I went for a walk with Henry.  Then we read some of our writing to each other while we sat on the chaise lounge.  After that, I cooked dinner, and we opened a bottle of wine and talked."  They didn't have TV then.  Her journals give lengthy descriptions of each day, and when she writes down July 12, she knows it's July 12, which is the BEGINNING of summer.  She had no problem keeping track of the days.  Unlike those who think it is August 31 when it is only July 17!

So next time you find yourself lamenting that the summer is almost over, instead of checking off yet another thing on your To-Do List, I advise dropping everything and spending one whole day at the beach.   Feel the sand on your feet and the sun on your shoulders. Maybe you'll find that the day felt just like a day, and then a week can once again feel like a week, a month like a month, and a summer like a summer.