Afternoons are the moments of the day that determine precisely what type of day it is going to be. Is it an active day where all things are accomplished? Is it a lower essential day where you relax and seek rejuvenation and activity? The day is begun with the hope and idealism of the morning, but the actions taken are in the afternoon and will determine if we follow through or put it off for another day. The afternoon is an important time for all things and people, and we have to learn to use that time of day. Life is like a day. As we move through it, the different stages bring different opportunities for success and other truths for people. My afternoons have always provided adventure and change, which has been the same in life. The afternoon has proven to be the best time of day.

No Need To Nap

From my earliest memories, I didn’t like the idea of taking a nap during the afternoon. It was a decent idea to provide extra rest, but to me, it was a waste of prime action time. During my youth, we lived in a camp on a lake in Maine. It was not fancy, rustic, but it provided me with the world’s most fabulous playground. I just wanted to use it, and sleeping would take away from what I could accomplish.

Some people enjoy that relaxing snooze after midday, which is excellent for them, but it is still when I could accomplish something. A workout could be done, a trail could be walked, thought could be written, or any other thing could be done. The sun is high; the opportunity for all things exists. It is not time to sleep. It is time to do. Go swim, go fishing or adventure to the small island in the middle of the lake. Do it all. There is plenty of time in the afternoon to accomplish whatever you want.

The Wisdom of the Morning

You also have the benefit of learning the lessons of the morning. You can now use each misstep you took or experience you learned earlier in the day to guide your steps to a more successful conclusion. The blind enthusiasm of the morning has turned into a practiced application of knowledge for the afternoon. One realizes that they don’t know everything, and there is an unlimited possibility of growth for all of your dreams. Challenges come, but you have the strength to work with it or around it if necessary.

Because you are wiser, the morning taught you about your enthusiasm and fundamental nature. Still, the afternoon allows you to rid yourself of the misguided ideas of yourself and, more importantly, others. You can take action as yourself without carrying the yoke of imagined expectations of others. You realize that you are free to be you in the afternoon because the day is not going to last forever. Living your life for someone else’s morals and expectations is living in a lie. The wisdom of the morning is only as powerful as the individual who chooses to wield it.

Nothing Lasts Forever

One of the powerful life lessons is that nothing lasts forever. No matter how good, strong, true, or successful you are, the afternoon will eventually end. Like the afternoons of my youth, as the time moved on, the shadows on the shores began to lengthen. At first, just a little, but then they grew longer and longer as the sun moved lower in the sky, and we all knew it was time to go home and end our adventures for that afternoon. We moved our way along the path to home, with a nostalgic excitement of having a great afternoon and knowing that more would come tomorrow.

It was time to move onto the evening of life, where darkness would overtake our playground, and the sounds of night slowly ramped up into our consciousness—the call of the lonely loon unseen on the lake. The constant peeping of a million frogs just beginning their adventure. The chorus of the night brought a time to reflect on the day’s accomplishments. There was never a moment then that I had a second of regret about the time I spent.

Sleep

It comes to us all at the end of the day, and if you did what you could that day, sleep would come quickly to you. It is a natural part of the day to move from one section to another, and just like the day, life shifts. In the end, recalling our day, we drift off into a peaceful slumber, knowing that in our afternoons, we took advantage of the sun,  and made the most of our playground, and enjoyed the adventures that came our way.

New things enter our lives and teach us many things, but that is not the time to change anything. It is time to put it away and find the rest you have earned. But always recall with fondness the light of the afternoon and the power of potential that existed there for you—waiting merely to be called. Call.

“The late afternoon sunlight, warm as oil, sweet as childhood”-Stephen King

“Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me, those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language”-Saul Bellow

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.” -Carl Jung