I love this quote by Annie Dillard from her book The Writing Life, which I read not too long ago – here is my review if interested. It’s as spartan and to the point as her prose.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Annie Dillard
I thought it would be really good to capture that sentiment in a DanelDoodle. This may become a design for a T-shirt so I’d love to know what you think by rating it out of 5 stars below.
The significance of this simple thought cannot be understated. It’s so true on many levels, beyond the context she was referring to, writing.
It’s true that your life is bult by tiny habits that accrue day by day by week, etc. Eventually they become your life.
It’s true that you should also guard against what you spend your time on and with who.
Annie Dillard goes on to write so eloquently on the subject that I thought it worth sharing here.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.”
Dillard emphasizes the value of presence in living a good life:
“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet.”