I no longer want to waste time in my life. That doesn’t mean that I want to rush through situations and experiences that are meant to be savored, but I do not want to waste my time on activities and relationships that are no longer fulfilling for the people involved.
In the past, I have dedicated many years of my life to working hard on marriages and relationships from a one-sided perspective. What a waste of time. I have also spent countless hours trying to keep my family happy. Also a waste of time.
You see, I’m finally realizing that it isn’t my job to please everyone or become who and what they think I should be. It is my job to live my life in a way that allows me to feel passionately about how I spend the majority of my time, so that my positive outlook on life can inspire others. If I can have an impact on just one person with this new perspective, it is worth every single one of the tears I have shed acknowledging the wasted time.
So, to define wasted time, let’s get a few misconceptions cleared up.
If I want to sleep in on a Saturday morning and luxuriate in the coziness of my bed, that is not time wasted. That is a little slice of heaven on 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets!
If I want to sit at happy hour with my friends from work and turn happy hour into happy SEVERAL hours, that is the opposite of wasted time. That’s therapy!
If I want to sit on the couch next to my son while he binge watches a show and I read my book, I will do exactly that. And I will take these memories, these moments, these snapshots of perfection, and tuck them away in my brain to snack on later.
While those scenarios are all worth every second of time spent, I have also come to realize that I need to delegate the remaining and less indulgent time in my life to activities that move me towards a more passionate life overall. Today, I sat with my calendar and my journal, and I planned out the remainder of the month of October. I should have been doing this type of time management all along, but I have not been doing it regularly at all. Hence the two weeks without posting a blog.
I want to live more purposefully and more passionately in as many moments as I can, so I have to budget the minutes slated for work time wisely, and I really must stick to the promises I make to myself.
In an effort to minimize wasted time and stick to these promises, I have decided that I will not spend mental energy and time on people who do not respond in the way that I think they should. I can still care about them, but their lack of contact or response will no longer occupy emotional real estate within my soul. If I choose to reach out to them for my own peace of mind, I will not go into a psychological tail spin when they do not reach out in return. It drains my positivity, and it is an enormous time waster.
With these types of adjustments in mind, I am scheduling more time for writing, for taking care of my body, and for activities that bring me pure joy. Even though I am currently fighting some ailments and injuries, I am going to take the time to eat better, rest more, move my body often, laugh even more than that, and write about all of it.
I hope you all dive into the end of this year realizing that your time is irreplaceable. We are not guaranteed a single minute of it. It makes me think of water in a desert; you need to let every drop of it swirl around inside of you because it is precious.
Let’s continue to focus on all of the experiences that are worth our time.
Happy pursuing!
~Chandra
