Take time to think

The other day I was driving down the street close to where we live, and a gal was mowing the yard with a push mower. What I noticed and got my attention was her wearing a pair of ear phones or whatever they are called. She was probably listening to music. Most everyone anymore who does any type of work with equipment will wear some kind of noise protection but most play music. So it does double duty. So when do people really think for themselves?

Many spend a bunch of time playing on Facebook or TikTok or something else on their cell phones. Or they buy these games and play it on a smart phone or on a lap top or home computer. I would imagine there are things which play games that use a designated type of TV. I don't really know.

Movies now seem to be more and more generated electronically using imaginary figures and images. Studies have been done as to what people like in a movie that will appeal to them and that's what is spit out. Almost instant success. I still remember watching "Old Yeller" or the movie on the deer or fawn. Can't think of it's name.

So where is the "think time"? Where is there a time when we are able to just think? When there is no noise or music or commercials or interference? Where can one actually think, or does one actually want to think? Are we happy rolling through life with no original thoughts? There are things one can play while going to sleep and soft natural sound tracks that can play while sleeping like waves on a beach or night sounds in nature. I'm thinking some of my best thoughts have been while sleeping.

I go back to my youth a lot and the simple life back then. Mom and Dad owned a cattle ranch where during the summer the cattle grazed on native grass that grew in the Sandhills of Nebraska. But during the winter there was snow and cold and no real grass, so during the summer one mowed the grass and baled it or stacked it up to feed in the winter. So one had to spend a lot of time on a tractor mowing and raking and either stacking or baling the hay. So you sat there for hours and hours driving and thinking. Thinking!

Or when we did cattle work, one pretty much always used a horse. So you sat there on the horse hour after hour just thinking. Or if one was doctoring cattle one spent hour after hour doctoring and handling the cattle and thinking. There was one main TV channel we could watch, and part of the time it was just fuzz. Evenings were spent reading or playing cards or thinking. Thinking again! Or were we daydreaming? Probably a little of both.

Or we sat and read books of all kinds. Clean books to be exact pretty much free from sex and other perversions. So we might wander out in the badlands of Arizona or New Mexico reading a Zane Grey. Or read about Tarzan or The Lone Ranger or Old Yeller. We read books. It exercised our minds and hopefully got us to thinking.

Time to think also allowed us to think up or dream up solutions to problems or simply better ways of doing things. Time to think also allowed us time to listen to our own minds whispering ideas or thoughts. Maybe think about adding a pinch of alum to the pickle recipe or a dab of garlic or a little sweetener rather than sugar.

Time, free time, is probably one of our most important resources. I've wondered how many of life's problems were solved while sitting and enjoying a cup of coffee or hot tea? Or while sitting by a wood stove listening to the wood burn and now and then pop?

Free, quiet, unpolluted time is a rare commodity any more. I wonder if we had more free think time if God would speak to us more? Use your "think" time wisely.