Life generally sucks when you can’t spend time the way you want to. For most of us, our time is bought, and we’re forced to have to spend it maintaining life and paying taxes. If you’re lucky enough, the time bought is pleasant enough and the work isn’t so bad. A lot of people who have money say this phrase; “Life stops sucking when you can choose how you spend your time.”
Time, obviously, is a limited resource and each of us has a limited amount of time here on Earth. If you’re in the USA, the average life span is currently 76 for men, 79 for women. Your life up to this moment, has it dragged on, or has it gone by pretty quickly? Most people say that time goes faster and faster as you age. Time is very short, we don’t have time to waste, especially if you have goals and want to accomplish something.
There is a delicate balance between time used effectively and wasted. In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, there is an emphasis on time. Time is required for doing everything, but you shouldn’t let a war go on a second longer than it has to. This means planning things out and having contingencies. I remember my father saying, “If you don’t plan, you plan to fail.” While I don’t completely agree with that sentiment, I would say that’s a good step in the right direction.
Not every plan works for everyone. Some people prefer a Franklin planning system where their entire day is planned out. I don’t operate well on that level myself, I have a task list that I need to accomplish, and I hammer out the difficult stuff as soon as possible and budget the rest of the time in. Whatever works for you, everyone’s a little different there. A good secret to getting things done is just starting the task. You can start a difficult task for 30 seconds, right? Well, that 30 seconds will end up a few hours after a while. The hardest thing for a lot of people is just getting started.
Affirmations and meditation should have their own time set out each day. In this sense, the most important part of those is consistency. Even if you just want to believe them or think the affirmations are a ways off, doing them consistently will go a long way to convince yourself that they are something that you deserve to have.
You can’t spend all of your time working on projects and neglecting everything, including your health. I find sanitation, health, animals, and people are things you simply can’t neglect. After that, you do need time to refocus your efforts. I’m usually a patient person, but a lot of the time, unnecessary heavy traffic can just drive me up the wall. Simple driving techniques could solve a lot of the flow issues. Besides the point, there are things you can’t neglect. This isn’t time wasted, this is preventing things that will occupy your time later if you did neglect them.
I have to mention work. Work itself or having a job isn’t always a bad thing and isn’t always a good thing. I consider it the lazy approach. Not that some jobs are not difficult. The taxes are easy, the lifestyle is lazy. Doing the same thing for yourself has a lot more involved. People of means often tell me that a JOB means “Just Over Broke”. And “You either make your dreams come true or help someone else with theirs”. Which is a good point as well. Nothing is more empowering than spending the precious time you have serving your family.
There are two things that should never be considered a waste of time. Spending time with family/friends and in pursuit of your goals. Even if you fail at these things, they can become valuable lessons in the future. After all, success isn’t winning or getting lucky, it’s the 1,999 other failures you had to make that one success work! People won’t look at the 1,999 other failures, they will only see the one thing that succeeded. For males, a similar thing applies, age isn’t as much a factor as much as wealth. In the US, society will say one thing and do another, that children are not valuable. If they were honest, women with more kids are the most valuable people in society. First, there’s no society without mothers, and two, the values instilled in the next generation can shape the country. Those two things alone make mothers the most valuable people in society. Nothing else you accomplish will come close to being a great mother. A great mother will have a positive influence on 4 generations. There’s no company or CEO in the world that can come close to that.
Don’t worry too much about time, though it is very important. As long as you keep your own pace and keep at it. Walking fast or slow, as long as you’re going where you want, that’s what matters. Because you will eventually get there. Now if you can make your time more effective, that would be beneficial too, but most people don’t even try. 90% of the competition won’t even show up, it’s only the 10% that you need to worry about.
A good exercise to do is to visualize what your funeral will be like. Who’s going to show up, what are they going to say? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? Just someone who was beloved by their family? A great innovator? A great woman? Decide now while you still have time to do those things.