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As you know by now, if you’re a regular reader of my posts, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about time and how it passes at different rates depending on i) what you’re doing  ii) what stage of life you are at  iii) whether you are interested in what you are doing or thinking  iv) whether you like the people you are with, or location you are in.   I love this elasticity of time, this construct that seems so rigid in the man-made sense, yet is so pliable that we can, individually, alter our perception of its passing.  

Yesterday I had a break-through in my thinking about my work.  As part of my morning wake-up, I read a magazine or a book whilst sipping that wonderful first cup of morning tea!  I find it wakes me up gently and gets my brain unfurled and ready for harder activities later on.  Anyway, I was reading the Surface Design Journal, which is all about the Australian textile world this issue, and I suddenly had one of those epiphany moments, which led to my running to my notebook and quickly jotting down the thoughts that were whirling around in my head.  It wasn’t so much that there were any new ideas in the mix – just that for one second, one element in one image provided the connecting link between two strands of ideas that had been jostling for position in my mind!  Suddenly, that moment stretched out whilst I scribbled down my scurrying thoughts, and when I looked up again, nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed.  

Those moments are amazing.  

Later on during the day, I returned to the magazine with another cup of tea and read a few more articles.  Other things popped up to re-enforce the epiphany and led to a further train of thought about how to develop my ideas in the future – after I’ve worked through the work I’m developing now.  That led to further thinking on whether I should contemplate going to do an MA or MFA, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for some time, and before I knew where I was, I’d done some research online and found exactly the right course for me, I’d spoken to my husband and suddenly the next two years looks completely different to what I was contemplating previously. 

The economic climate does have something to do with it, because I was hoping to go to the US to do an MFA, and had already decided where I wanted to go because the tutors are brilliant, but now that doesn’t appear to be so feasible, and so I have had to turn my attention to the UK.  Of course I’m too late for this year’s applications, so I have time to reflect and refine my ideas before applying to the college I’d like to attend.  There’s no guarantee that I’ll be accepted, of course, so everything may well change all over again.  But isn’t that part of the fun of life? 

That got me thinking about the 80/20 rule – that we do 80% of our work in 20% of our time.  So the remaining 80% of our time can be spent in slowing down our lives and getting living value from each wonderful moment.  Now that seems a good ratio to me!