Observance

Have you noticed that there has been a different feel in the air these past few days?  By sure and certain signs, we are well aware that suddenly it’s autumn — as trees begin to shed their summer dresses, leaf by leaf, first having costumed themselves in high color to celebrate the Autumn evening.

And one of these mornings, the moisture on the grass will be white and crisp. Then the fields will take on quieter color, before winter steps in and maybe covers the sleeping silence with white sheets.  Aside from the beauty, the naturalness, the wonder of this annual occurrence, what always strikes us is that it comes so suddenly.  We remember only yesterday hearing the children talk of being soon out of school — but the summer has suddenly slipped by, and now they are back again at their books.

We remember only yesterday watching the last snow melting, and farmers plowing spring fields.  Only yesterday, we remember looking anxiously for the first sign of leaves to show, and for the beauty of the spring blossoms.  Only yesterday (or so it seems) we remember the rush of Christmas shopping, and the ever-fresh wonder of the Christmas morning; the new year; February and Valentine's; April and Easter; May and Memorial Day; June and commencement; and July fireworks and August “dog days." Then summer is gone — and suddenly it’s autumn.

Insight

Wonderful as it all is, yet too many summers have slipped suddenly from us without our having done a thousand things we had intended to do — things we had solemnly said “this year” we would do, with family and friends — when school was out, when summer came.  But summer came and slipped away — and suddenly it’s autumn.  And too much of life itself has slipped away, as spring has successively succumbed to summer, and as successive summers suddenly passed.  And when it is autumn, it is almost winter; and when it is winter, we had better have the harvest behind us.

There is another side that relates to seasonal postponement in the sense that a person pretends that something he ought to be doing now is going to be easier later, and so justifies himself in leaving it until later.

This often applies to work, to family relations that need mending, friendships that need strengthening, assignments we accept, to paying obligations, to studying and to many other matters.  The fact is that most of us at times go through more or less meaningless motions before settling down to serious needs or to serious thinking. 

Sometimes we overlook that which ought to be done now rather than later.  And then we postpone and tell ourselves that we will soon begin, that we will soon settle down to the task at hand. But the process of procrastination often goes on and on, and the damaging part is that we ourselves constantly have it hanging over our heads and can’t forget it and can’t feel free.

And so, we worry, and worrying about something that should be done and that isn’t getting done, often wears us away more than working at it would.  Often at the start of school, a student will postpone settling down to serious study.

The course is just beginning, and there are so many side attractions, and he doesn’t feel at first that he would really be much behind if he fails to prepare just the first day’s assignment — or the second — and so on.  And so, he procrastinates reading; he procrastinates the doing of particular problems and so succumbs to the false philosophy that he had just as well loaf along now and cram a little later.  Such is the pretense of procrastination—of too easily setting work aside; of too easily setting obligations aside; pretending to be prepared and bluffing and fumbling and offering inept explanations to ourselves and to others also.

And so, we often wear ourselves with worry rather than with actual work.  No matter how easy or how hard an assignment seems, it will always wear and worry us more until we’ve made a beginning.  The first honest step is always essential to the process of completion.

Scrambling for lost time is an unhappy occupation.  We can buy the harvest of the farmer’s field.  We can buy apples by the bushel.  We can buy all the material things that another man has made.  But in life we cannot buy a year or a month or a minute.  And with the seasons and the years slipping from us so suddenly, surely, we should sharpen our sense of values; surely, we should look at everyone and everything around us and ask ourselves what really matters most.

Southern Standard contributor Cordell Crawford can be contacted at crawfordcordell@yahoo.com