On my own meandering personal journey to enlightenment, I’m increasingly puzzled by something — most people seem to avoid a pretty obvious truth about their own lives and how they choose to live them. That “truth” is our own personal relationship with TIME. We manage ourselves as if we have infinite time to get around to doing the things we want to do, eventually. Yet we KNOW we actually have a FINITE amount of the stuff to work with. We spend time in endeavors we don’t value, we waste time doing things we don’t really enjoy, we put off things we know to be important to “another time”. We have a pretty strange relationship with “time”, and meanwhile the clock ticks on. For your consideration (excerpted from Lewis Timberlake’s “First Thing Every Morning”) — six things regarding your relationship with time:
First: Nobody can manage time. You can manage the things that take up your time.
Second: Time is expensive. A huge percentage of our day is spent on those things or those people that bring us a small percentage of our results.
Third: Time is perishable. It cannot be saved for another time, for later use.
Fourth: Time is measurable. Everybody has the same amount of time, no matter your station in life. It is not how much you have; it is how you use it.
Fifth: Time is irreplaceable. We never make back time once it is gone.
Sixth: Time is a priority. You have enough time for most anything you choose to do, so long as it ranks high enough among your priorities.