The old saying goes, 'money is a good servant and a bad master'. The same concept applies to time. Do you master time, or does it master you? Isn't it annoying when someone fails to deliver on time? Aren't we sad when our loved ones are "too busy"? Quite different from when - regrettably, unavoidably, through not fault of our own - we are unable to deliver on time? Or have to tell a loved one that we are "too busy"?
Stating the obvious, everyone has the same amount of time in a day: 24 hours. That's 1,440 minutes, or 57,600 seconds. Every day of your life except (possibly) two, the day you're born and the day you die.
We blame time - there not enough of it, it's going too fast - rather than recognise the issue is us. Blaming time: the ultimate ego defence! We don't own our choices in time expenditure. Perhaps we don't want to acknowledge the painful double-edged truth of how much time we really have, and how little.
Our perversity about time encourages us to live in total denial about how long almost any human activity will take. We use best-case scenarios based on a fantasy that we will always be in peak condition. We come unstuck when faced with reality. We aren't machines, we don't work at the same pace throughout a day, let alone a life, and yet few of us have to the courage to admit this, and take action. Go on, admitting it is half the battle.
"I didn't have time to..." As excuses go, this is an all-time loser. Sorry, but if you're alive when making this excuse, you had time, you chose to use it elsewhere. When you fail to deliver please, please, please do not tell me you just 'didn't have time'. Instead, just say: "I didn't finish..." or just "I didn't do..." I suspect that the only one listening to our excuses is our feeling of guilt.
Ready for a challenge? Try this thought experiment. For a day (a week is better but so hard for us serial procrastinators) do not blame time. Time is a good servant, but a bad master.
This is post 18 of 100 posts in 100 days.
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