When was the last time you said or heard someone say, “I don’t have enough time!” or “I wish I had more time,” or “If only I had more time.”
I’m guessing it was within the last 24 hours. We all obsess (to an extent) over time. After all, once time passes all we have left are the memories. You never get a moment back. Time is precious. How we use it matters.
Here is my question of the week: If you suddenly had more time, hours more, days more, weeks more, what would you do with it? Do you even know?
During my university years I became friends with a guy from inner city LA. Like the dirty underbelly of LA. The most poignant anecdote he shared with me was the reaction of his high school when he called them for his transcripts. You see, he had been shipped out of California to Darby, Montana for a stint in the job corps. It was either this or the military, or prison. After his time in the job corps, he hitchhiked to Missoula and set about applying to be a student at the University of Montana.
The university informed him they would need his high school transcripts. When he reached out to his high school. They didn’t know how to respond. There had been a fire a while back. They didn’t have any records of any of the students’ transcripts. And up to that point, not a single student who had graduated had asked for them. They ended up sending a doctor’s style note to the U of M saying he had sure enough gone to school there, and as far as they knew he had graduated high school.
This same friend of mine shared that while he had been in high school, he had started off everyday by looking in the mirror and telling himself he would most likely be dead by tomorrow. Just worry about this moment right now. That was all he had. The hardest thing for him to adjust to at the University of Montana was having an unlimited, dizzying future. He suddenly woke up one morning and realized he had his whole life before him, and he didn’t have the foggiest clue as to what to do with it.
Time. So much unexpected time.
I have another friend whose extreme chronic health issues have reduced her daily routine to the basics of survival. What needs to be done right now to stay alive? What doctor needs to be called next? What supplies need to be reordered? What prescriptions renewed? How can I get the help I need to get better? This has been going on for five years. Five years, lived from desperate moment to desperate moment. Last week she had a doctor finally relent to giving her more medication, more of the single medication (an antihistamine) she knows to exponentially improve her quality of life. It shocked her so thoroughly, she has yet to allow herself to fully celebrate. She asked me a few days ago, “If I actually start to get better, what am I going to do? I don’t know what to do with myself, with my time.”
So much unexpected time.
I think my point is we are conditioned by our life experiences to spend our time the way we spend our time. I’m not sure I know any different. If I had more time, I think I would spend it the exact same way I am currently spending all my time. Why should I think I would spend it any differently? What would I do if I had an eighth day each week? Would I learn Swahili? Work out at the gym? (That’s a big, fat negative.) Learn cake decorating? No. I wouldn’t do any of those things because I don’t currently do any of those things. I have all the time left in my life to do with it whatever I choose (within certain restraints of course). Having more time wouldn’t change a blessed thing. I would watch more football, write a bit more, read a bit more, be preachy a bit more, and probably come up with some excuse for needing to do more of whatever form of salary slavery I find myself in at the moment.
I think what we mean when we say, “I wish I had more time!” is “I need to rethink the way I spend the time I have.” If I keep thinking about how I need more time to enjoy my sons’ teen years, then the reality is I probably need to spend less time playing beer pong…unless, of course I’m playing beer pong with my teen sons. (I’ve never played beer pong, I swear.)
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