Time is something we often think about and is frequently mentioned in conversation for one reason or another. We ask what time it is, what time an event starts, what time it finishes, what time we need to be somewhere, etc. We also cite time as one of the most common excuses for why we are not able to get something done. It is either that we don’t have enough of it, or that we have plenty of it. These statements have a different starting point but lead to the same outcome of not getting anything done.
You can tell yourself whatever you want but if you are young and you think you have all this time to pursue your dreams later in life, think again. Whilst probability is small, death has also claimed young lives. Death doesn’t discriminate against age. Death comes when our time is up and there is no way about it. No cheating or escaping it either. The only escaping we undertake almost daily is escaping life. We escape life by spending time on things or with people that do nothing for us, that hold us back instead of lifting us up. It is not other’s people’s fault, but only our own and the choices we make. We might also be scared of what people may think if we choose ourselves over a social function, if we choose getting up early to hit the gym, if we spend time by ourselves, working on ourselves and our gifts. We load ourselves up with useless things to spend our days.
You can also keep lying to yourself and tell yourself that you have no time for nothing, not even yourself. People often say that they have no time to cook healthy food. Guess what? You don’t have to spend two hours every day to cook a five-star meal. You just have to spend ten minutes to cook something that nourishes you. Ten minutes is plenty of time to achieve this. Likewise, people might say that they would like to write a book, but the thought of the time expenditure needed to achieve this seems impossible. People give up before they have even started. But consider this: If you take ten minutes every single day to write something, anything, you probably can write a page a day. In a year, you would have written 365 pages; in essence you have written a book. Maybe it isn’t the fiction book that sits in your heart, but you have written a book about something non-the-less of substantial length.
Whatever it is that you think you don’t have time for, just start with ten minutes. Maybe five even. No one can tell me that they don’t have or can’t take five to ten minutes for themselves. No one can tell me that they can’t find just ten minutes to meditate, to write, to do push-ups, to do whatever. What these people are really saying is that they don’t love themselves enough to take just ten minutes every single day to better themselves. They can’t take ten minutes to start living because it is easier to spend those ten minutes complaining about circumstances. They are too attached to living a life that causes them pain, and ironically the pain seemingly is better than bettering oneself.
It is all about priorities. Sure, life gets busy, but you have to ask yourself, what you are busy with. Investigate what eats up your time. Are you busy pursuing your dreams and building a life worth living or are you busy merely existing and leading a mediocre life. What conversations do you have? Are they meaningless small talk? Are they even with the people that you call your people? Are you spending time doing things to please others? If people are time-fillers to you, you better let them go; for your sake but also theirs. If you let worthless conversations go, let the complaining go, let the gossiping go, let the people that hold you back go, you get all this time back that you thought you never had.
We all have the same 365 days in the year, the same 24 hours in the day. What it comes down to is what you do with that time. If you spend time watching TV shows day in and day out, if you spend time picking fights just to prove that you are right, if you spend time with thinking about problems that are not even real, if you spend time feeling sorry for yourself and your life, you will never have enough time for anything. You will drift further and further away from your path and yourself. But if you go the other way and do the things that are difficult but necessary to get time back in your life, you can build the life that you want instead of being at mercy of life’s randomness.
Life may give you unforeseen circumstances but if you spend your time building a strong mind, a healthy body, and working on your craft, you will not only create a life of your desire, but you will also have a better time dealing with the unexpected and often difficult things that life might throw at you. Time is so precious. You have this one life with limited time, and you only truly have the present moment to effect any change in your life. We can come up with all the excuses why we can’t do anything and being tired is often a reason too but spending those few minutes every day doing something for ourselves, taking ourselves serious and care for ourselves, doing the difficult things, we actually get time back. Our energy will be elevated. Our mood will be better. We will be more focused. We end up feeling less tired and we want to spend more time on things that inspire us. It awakens something within us.
Ask yourself how you spend your days and any moment that you have spare. And don’t be mistaken, taking time to rest is important too, however, know the difference. Be careful of thinking you need rest when you don’t and when you actually need rest. You can only ever be as good to others as you are to yourself, so gift time to yourself to do the hard things that will lead to a life that is easy. You have to take the time to conquer your own bulls*it and excuses, to get time back and lead a life that you desire, no matter how difficult it seems at first. There has to be a sense of urgency because your time may be up sooner than you think and would you not rather use the time that is left, to lead a life you love?