A Man In His Life by Yehuda Amichai (POEM)

A man doesn't have time in his life to have time for everything.

He doesn't have seasons enough to have a season for every purpose.

Ecclesiastes was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,

to laugh and cry with the same eyes,

with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,

to make love in war and war in love.

And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,

to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest

what history  takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.

When he loses, he seeks; when he finds, he forgets;

when he forgets, he loves; when he loves, he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned,

his soul is very professional.

Only his body remains forever an amateur.

It tries and it misses, gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing, drunk and blind in its pleasures  and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,

Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,

the leaves growing dry on the ground,

the bare branches pointing to the place

where there's time for everything.

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Blog Author's thought:

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The poem A Man In His Life by Yuheda Amichai is something that I just stumbled upon one night. And this poem means a lot. It's meaning is deep. I can compare it to the Desiderata by Marx Ehrmann, another poem, and a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh with the title 'My Last'. It possess something so unique, so subtle, so rich that it has the potentials of being one of your favorite poems. It's wonderful.

The human body is indeed but a vessel whereas the soul is of a time with a beginning but without an end.

God gave man time in his hands. How long? No one knows except Him. For what? For man to do what he wants and needs to do. Considering how people think of this days, making a list of what they want and need to do will take an eternity. The poem implies that man cannot plan for himself. The plan was made by the Omnipotent Being. These plans take a certain amount of time to flourish. Man will try to do all of the things that he wants to do.

Thing is, man was not given enough time to have time with everything.

So what should man do?

Be contented.

Man should be contented on being able to do one thing at a time. He should acknowledge to himself that he would never have the time to do everything that he wants to do. But man have enough time to decide on what things he will do.

If man spent time to decide the things he will do, he will find contentment. Erase the unnecessary things on the 'To Do' list.

When man realize he cannot have enough time to do everything that he wants to do, he will have enough time to do what he needs to do. 

When he loses, he seeks; when he finds, he forgets;

when he forgets, he loves; when he loves, he begins to forget.

No one would deny this. Man is never content with what he have. It's a never-ending cycle.

The only thing that could stop this cycle is contentment. Sadly, this word is something that man is having a hard time to comprehend and understand. Man's heart is filled with desires on things he wants to obtain. But these things aren't always essential.

The heart's desires are divided into two categories: the needs and the wants. The key to happiness and fulfillment of one's heart, mind, and soul is to carefully arrange this things and to give more priority to the needs that to the wants. The wants bring happiness and fulfillment, too. But not for long, unlike when a man accomplished all his needs.

Conclusion. Man should understand that the time given to him to do things he want and need to do is not unlimited. He should learn how to give priority to the things that should come first. In doing so, he will be sure that happiness and contentment will find their way to him by themselves. ^_^