Time: Use It or Lose It
“Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.”
- Thomas Edison
86,400 seconds a day. That’s all you get. No more. No less.
How do you use yours? How much time did you really need today?
“Really need” as in: The time you used to make a difference in your life, your family’s life and the life of those around you?
Of course, the last question begs the next question: How much time did you waste?
“Waste” as in foolishly fritter away? Looking at your social media. Playing games on your phone. Passing rumors. Letting down those who trust you to do your best.
How much time did you waste staring off into space, NOT thinking about how I can push my needle farther ahead?
How many opportunities did you let slip through your fingers?
Opportunities as in pushing those who need to be pushed, embracing those who need your confidence, getting ahead of what is expected by the “average worker”?
How much?
Once each second ticks by that you did not move forward, you actually stepped back. You moved backward because from this point on you will be stealing seconds from the future, for the ones that you wasted in the present.
My advice to you is to value every second. Each tick of the clock signals the passing of time. The unstopping clock of your life, ticking down the seconds until you are no more. From the day we are born we are just waiting for the inevitable … for our clocks to stop.
Since it sounds futile, why work at all? It won’t matter. Eventually we all time-out. So why not just sit back and let time run out?
The rapper Macklemore, in his song “Glorious”, quotes the poet Banksy, saying, “I heard you die twice, once when they bury you in the grave, and the second time is the last time that somebody mentions your name.”
Using each second is about living a life of significance and striving to NEVER “die”.
When we use every second of every day we will never be forgotten. We will make a difference. And that difference will help others to make a difference in lives that they touch.
The standard we set in living our life will be the thing that keeps us alive forever.
Alexander the Great died 2,346 years ago.
He was a human, just like you.
Yet I am speaking his name right now, so he is still “alive”.
Alexander only lived to the age of 32. How do you think he used the 1,009,152,000 seconds he lived?
In his short time, he ended up ruling over the known civilized world.
As governor of Spain, thirty-three-year-old Julius Caesar, wept at a shrine commemorating Alexander.
Caesar didn’t weep for Alexander, but for the fact that in a similar life span, Caesar, relatively, had done nothing of significance.
Over his next 22 years, Caesar would use every second. He would change the world. He used every second to make sure his life had meaning.
Use every second of every day making sure that you are squeezing out all of the opportunities that are possible. When time is wasted, you can never get it back.
Have an amazing day!
