Have you ever heard the saying: “Time is money?” Everyone that is more than five hears old has probably heard it. We all know what it means: Time can be converted into money. And vice versa. But there are other connections as well. For example that if we don’t pay attention to them, they tend to slip through our fingers. And we always seem to have too little of them. While a few have way too much. But when it comes to time, those that have too much are usually those that are unemployed, while those that have too much money are leaders of multinational corporations, banks etcetera. Not that I’m against people being rich, but when they are so rich that they start wanting to use their money to influence politics or even take over the world, then someone should probably take their money away from them, since their money are more dangerous than an atom bomb. Because if someone had a really dangerous weapon and was using it in really dangerous ways, you would, if you could, want to take the weapon out of that person’s hands, right?
But I’m getting a bit off topic here.
As I said, people either seem to have too much or too little time. I belong to the former category. There never seems to be any balance.
Something that I feel that I have to add before I move on, is that what I've noticed lately, is that this should absolutely not be confused with getting as many things as possible done. What matters most is what that which we spend our time on does with us. And this is important. If I do certain things, this does something to me. If I for example allow distractions to constantly get a hold on my attention, I will become more and more unfocused. But if I get into the habit of bringing back my attention to what I'm doing here and now, I will strengthen my focus. And attention and focus are some of the most important skills we must develop. Especially since we live in a world that, by design, constantly tries to rob us of our attention and focus.
What I’ve come to understand, is that an advantage, because I’m not addicted to my phone. But I do have other distractions. My distractions are mainly movies and TV-series. And I also waste a lot of time being unfocused and sloppy with what I do. And the more I am unfocused and sloppy with what I do, the more I turn into an unfocused and sloppy person. One that has to work under a lot of stress to fix the consequences of being unfocused and sloppy, I might add.
This is one side of the coin. The other is that how I treat my time will have an effect on how others treat my time. If I don’t value it and respect it, why would others? If others see me waste time on trivialities for no good reason, they may, consciously or unconsciously, believe that they may have something more important to fill my time with. There is an equivalent when it comes to money. If I engage in unwise spending it will have an effect on those around me. Others may want to join me and together we will be even more unwise, than if we were just being foolish on our own.
The reverse is true as well. If you decide to take control of your time and money, it will have a positive effect on those around you. And when it does, their actions will reinforce your positive behavior.
Think about this and you can probably see that it’s true in your own life. Think about what this means. This means, as with so many other things, that you have quite a lot of power over your life and those that you share it with. But you don’t exercise that power through forcing your will on others or the world. You exercise that power by taking charge of yourself. Then others and the world will follow. This is the old cliché: “Be the change that you want to see.” But it’s not just a catchy slogan. It’s actually how reality works.
Maybe what we spend our time on might not matter that much in the grander scheme of things. Maybe it does. I start to lean more towards that it actually does. But no matter what, we are here and now and I at least don’t want to reach the end of my life feeling like I spent most of my time on things that don’t matter.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar