I’ve been helping Noah Weiss with his WordPress.com site and found his article on countdowns triggered a memory for me.
There are many forms of countdowns in our lives. Counting down as a warning, to prepare for launch, to time a game. There are also many ways to count up, counting to ten to control anger or prevent anger, control the length of an event, and measure your life in either direction. There are so many ways countdowns also represent times, times in our lives, counting up or counting down, measurements of moments.
One of my most memorable time countdown moments was in Israel. There are two holidays that rip me up every time. Holocaust Day and Independence Day. Both are started and ended with a siren that lasts two minutes. Everyone and everything in the country comes to a complete stop during those two minutes. Cars stop on the highway. People stop walking. People stand still no matter where they are. Trains, buses, everything comes to a complete stop throughout the entire country and silence falls dramatically (Israel is a noisy place).
The first time I experienced it, it hit me with a wave of discomfort. I didn’t know how long it would last and it felt like it lasted forever. I looked around at all the people stopped, standing next to their cars on main roads, and was very uncomfortable with the silence. I understood the significance, but I didn’t understand. I think I didn’t want to understand. Two minutes was a countdown representative of an eternity in that moment.
The second time, I had a better perspective on the reasons for the moment. I looked around and noticed people standing still, tears quietly flowing down their faces. Grim faces. Some people holding hands or each other. A young child grasp in arms squirming until the adult snuggled down into the child’s neck and both became still.
Years of history flowed into those two minutes. History representative of horror and destruction. Of loss. Of death. Of live. Of birth. Of renewal. Of faith. Of courage. As George Carlin so eloquently described it, “I say life began about a billion years ago and it’s a continuous process. Continuous, just keeps rolling along.”
In those two sets of two minutes, I felt a part of something, connected to the past and the future. It’s a countdown that goes in both directions. How long since when and how long until when – the when is a big question and it will happen whether or not we ask the question.
As you move through your life, pause for a moment and consider the moments when time counted for you. Stopping time to remember time is a powerful thing.
Dreams of a nature and travel photography career is a good dream, but one that requires an education first. 
It’s about learning how accounting works and how the tax system works in your country and outside. Because I travel and work all over the world, I have to know what the tax rules and laws are in the various states within the United States (income tax, no income tax, sales tax, no sales tax, property tax, earned income taxes, investment taxes – will they tax money I earn outside of the state or only within the state) as well as the tax rules for living outside of the country and how to pay taxes on money earned outside and within…and the list is long.
I’ve learned from the best in the business that they stayed in school and went to night school to get the training they really needed because they sat down at 16 years old and made a plan for their lives. They went where serendipity took them, but only because they had the training and education to recognize an opportunity when it stood in their face and followed their heart along with the money trail.
According to a recent Harris Interactive/Rebtel Research Study, smart phone and web users are idiots and spending money they don’t have to call internationally. 
