What Will You Fill Your Interval With?
Literary critic Walter Pater made the sombre observation that “We have an interval, and then our place knows us no more.”
We have an interval, a brief escapade, a fleeting existence in this mortal world, before the curtain is closed. On social media, we are often advised to spend this interval in this or that way.
Ultimately, while there are many merits to these suggestions, they ignore the obvious fact that you alone know what you like and dislike. You alone know what you would like to do and achieve. It is therefore incumbent on you, and you alone, to decide how you will spend your time.
Strangely, for many - perhaps for most - this choice, while made individually, is not made by the individual. The psychologist Carl Jung warned that “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Are you guided by the conscious or the unconscious? How many of your actions are unintentional? How often do you spend hours doing things you later regret? Cumulatively, these actions will lead us to our destinies, and we may lament at what we find.
To be clear, I am not attempting to advise anyone on how to acquire success. I am not an oracle of wisdom. The focus here is you, and what you would like to do with your life. If the answer is spending 15 hours a day on social media, great. Many have done that and attained tremendous success, networking and creating opportunities they would never have dreamed of. Many others have done the same and bitterly regretted the results.
Which risks will you assume? All answers are valid, to the extent that they are intentional.
We have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. What will you fill your interval with?