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0So I spent my most recent birthday in my favorite forest. No plans, no celebration dinner waiting for me, just me, the trees, and the sound of my footsteps on the ground. I was walking slowly letting myself wander. Noticing how the light moved through the branches.
And there's something about being in a forest that immediately shifts your nervous system. The pace changes. Your body softens. And you remember that you belong to something much older than your to do list.
As I walked, I found myself thinking about the trees as ancestors. Some of them had clearly been there long before me. Some would still be there long after. And then a question surfaced. Have I been a good ancestor? Not in terms of, like, legacy or achievement, but in the everyday sense. How am I spending my time while I'm here?
And that question stopped me. I began reflecting on the last 33 years of my life, the choices I remember, the seasons I moved through, the ways in which I've grown, stumbled, learned, and tried again.
It was an honest reflection, and honest reflection takes courage. Mindfulness teaches us that reflection is not meant to pull us into regret. It's meant to help us arrive more fully into the present moment.
When we reflect with care, we're not asking what did I do wrong? We're asking, how do I want to live from here? Our relationship with time begins to shift when we realize that we're not here to outrun it. We're here to fully inhabit it.
I've been thinking a lot about how strange time has felt since 2020. It feels like I've lived many different lives since then. Entire chapters, major transitions. And yet, when I name the number of years, it feels surprisingly small. At the same time, I look ahead and imagine what could happen in the next 6 years, how much can change, how much life can unfold.
Even this year feels strange. It's early, but it already feels full. Almost heavy, which makes me pause and wonder. What is time, really? Who decided how we measure it? Who decided the structure of our days, our work weeks, our pace, and how much of that structure actually supports us?
I notice that when I compare myself to others, time immediately tightens. I start feeling behind, like I should be further along, like certain parts of my life just need to hurry up. But when I come back to the present moment. Something shifts. Right now, nothing is missing. That urgency fades. The anxiety quiets. I remember that life is not happening later. It's happening now.
And there's also a deeper layer to my relationship with time that comes from my family. I grew up in an immigrant household where time was never abundant, where survival shaped the rhythm of the days, where rest was earned, not assumed.
My parents didn't have extra time. They were building something stable from the ground up. And they invested their time into me so that I could have more choice with mine. Education, opportunity, space to explore who I am and how I want to live. That inheritance lives in my body.
So when I ask myself, if I'm making good use of my time, I'm not asking from a place of pressure, I'm actually asking from a place of gratitude and care. I think about those stories we hear from people near the end of their lives, and the reflections that they offer. Rarely do they wish that they had worked more. More often they wish that they had been braver, more present, more connected. They wish they had not waited until they felt ready.
And readiness I've learned is often a choice. It's a decision. I have always felt like an old soul. I remember feeling out of sync with my age early on, drawn to people much older than me, as if my inner clock was tuned differently. And that has shaped how I relate to time. I don't feel rushed by age itself. I feel called by meaning.
So what I hope you take from this is not urgency, but empowerment. You have more agency over your time than you may realize. Mindfulness reminds us that even within systems and responsibilities, we still have choice, choice in how we meet our days, choice in what we give our attention to, choice in how present we are for the moments that make up our lives.
You don't need the perfect conditions to begin living intentionally. You can begin by noticing, by reflecting, by asking honest questions with kindness. Time is not something that you're running out of. It's something that you are in constant relationship with. And perhaps being a good ancestor starts here. With how you care for this moment. Take care, friends.
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