At the end of the day, your level of happiness, health, wealth and success will be determined by how well you use your time. Thomas Edison said it best, "Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose."
The one and only thing that is truly scarce in life is time. Have you ever gone to a terrible movie or sat in a boring, non-productive meeting at work and left thinking to yourself, “well there’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back?” You’re right; you won’t ever get them back. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn’t buy an extra minute. Consequently, time is our most precious resource and as Thomas Edison said, the only thing we can’t afford to lose.
So then why is it that so many people are willing to let days, weeks, months and even years go by as if they are on auto-pilot? Living life as though in a somnambulist state, where one day bleeds into the next with the only discernible difference from one to the other being what they ate for dinner. Letting life pass them by until finally years pass and they become filled with regret over missed opportunities and unfulfilled dreams. Is it because they believe that they can pull 25 hours out of the day if they need to? Is it because they believe that they will live forever? No I don’t think so, unless of course we’re talking about teenagers. The truth is everyone knows that time is limited. So why is wasted time an all too common fact of life in our society? That is the strange thing about people, it’s not that they don’t know what they should or shouldn’t be doing…they do. It’s that they don’t act on that knowledge. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, yet people smoke, everyone knows that being overweight can lead to health problems, yet they overeat, everyone knows that every day is a precious commodity that can never be reproduced, yet they waste days on end. Why?
The answer to that question is…routine.People tend to do what they’ve always done. The majority of people live life according to a routine. They get up at the same time every morning, they take the same route to work, they have lunch at the same time (sometimes even the same place), they leave work at the same time, they take the same route home, they eat, watch TV, go to bed at the same time and then do it all over again the next day. No wonder people live there life thinking “is this all there is?” Yet they go on living there life the same way, day in and day out, somehow hoping that magically there life is going to be transformed and become worthwhile and exciting, hoping for some external force to sprinkle them with magic fairy dust and give them the power to soar, to fly, to make life wondrous again. Kind of like when they were children and each day lasted an eternity and was filled with curiosity, playfulness and anticipation.
I would like to stress that not all routines are bad. If your routine is empowering and healthy and promotes the enjoyment of life on a daily basis then continue the routine. The routines that we’re worried about are the ones that keep you bogged down in the spiral of nothingness leading to a life of regrets and lack of utilization.
If you could make life fun, fulfilling and exciting again, would you? Well the good news is that you can. The bad news is that it’s not going to happen if you keep waiting for the magic fairy dust to come. You are at cause in your life, whatever is in your life now, whatever your life has become you are responsible for, you have attracted and manifested. Accept responsibility for it and resolve to change it…remember what you can cause…you can un-cause.
You are where you are today because of the choices you made 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, yesterday. Where you are tomorrow, 1 year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now will depend on the choices you make today and from now on. Contrary to popular belief, your past does not determine your future. Or as Dr. Wayne Dyer put it, “the wake does not drive the boat.” The only thing that determines your future is the choices that you make today and from now on. That’s why you must have a sense of urgency when it comes to your life. Are you getting the results that you want? If not, then starting making choices that are going to get you the results that you desire...every second counts. Don’t wait until tomorrow to begin your life because tomorrow never comes. Start today, start now…this minute.
