The month of August is a month in a holding pattern. It foresees the fall season with all of its activities, holidays and seasonal preparations. It is pre-football: the practices are beginning and the pre-season playoffs begin even though the weather is hot, especially with full uniforms when in use. It is pre-school: a time for getting the necessary books and class materials together. It is pre-harvest: at least in the store decorations. August is also pre-playoffs and World Series with all of the excitement that will be coming. It is pre-holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s will be rushing toward us with the ever-changing store decorations, one blending into the other faster and faster each coming year. It is also pre-weather: rain and cold weather are coming. The leaves will be turning and colder-weather clothes have to be brought out of storage or purchased. For a static month in a seemingly holding pattern, August gets to be very busy and cluttered. It is also a month of organizing for the next season.
Sometimes the preparations can outshine the actual events. The next few weeks can become anti-climactic. If overdone, the next season can become a downer or depressing. This is a lot like all preparations when overdone or over-thought-out. Enjoying the month and relaxing and letting the weeks go by at their normal pace is much healthier than a frantic must-get-it-done mode.
How do we slow down the frantic pace of living that we get pushed and pulled into and can’t exit? Limits! Instead of thinking about the whole month of August, we need to take it in smaller increments. Even one day at a time is too much. Even hours or minutes. Time itself is the problem. We are ruled by clocks, watches, TVs, computers, the Internet, iPads, etc. Everything we do is connected to a time restraint. We are locked in to our schedules, and sometimes into everyone else’s schedules, again with no exit. No limits. The only solution is to figure out how to leave the carousel, the treadmill, the endless highway of our lives and take control of reality. Living in someone else’s reality is a real problem and this also limits our personal control. Without all of the above time restraints we should be able to gain control of our lives once again, but then what? Keeping that control is another problem.
How do we lose track of time? What breaks the rule of the clock? Is this even possible? Our own minds are the answer. Our own personal lists or schedules tailored to our own personal needs. This means limiting our exposure to TV, Internet, personal phone, and all other communication devices that sap our energies and control our minds with someone else’s agenda. Control of all of the above is the only way to insure our own sanity. In this way we can slow down our schedules and make our own times manageable. We can actually breathe on our own and deal with realistic plans of our own. We can have time to enjoy ourselves and the time period we are in, the present, instead of trying to live in the future. A much healthier mindset.
And, finally, the best way to support the above release is music. Music releases us from the time restraints of our daily lives. It makes sanity possible by eliminating the unnecessary elements in our lives that push us around. Music is the glue that holds us together when we use it judiciously as a support and not a crutch. Let us use it wisely…!