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Killing Time
Are you really?
People like to say that they are killing time.
"Oh, I'm at the mall, you know… Just killing time."
It doesn't work that way. Time kills you.
There are 28,251 days in the average human lifespan. What you do with them is up to you, but when the clock strikes midnight on that final day you no longer have any input. All you can do is look back on what you've done and the story you've written with your actions.
There are some people in this world that cut their days short on purpose. They don't want to play anymore and end their own lives. Maybe ten thousand days and then… suicide. All done.
But you would never do such a thing, right? You can tell yourself this, in your comfortable chair, reading some guys blog while you're supposed to be taking care of that spreadsheet for the boss. You're going to get all twenty-eight thousand days. Heck, with medical technology, you could probably get thirty or more!
Now look back on what you've been doing with your days. How many hours of television did you watch last week? Ever think about counting it? Kind of an uncomfortable thought, huh? What about that time you spend each day commuting to work; sitting in that same seat, driving the same route, cursing at the same intersections? All that time you spend preoccupied while you’re with your kids, friends or maybe that one person that you’ve chosen to love. Does that time spent with them really matter when all you’re really focused on is worrying about your mortgage?
Consider the path you’re on and total up the days again. How many of them were really lived well?
What is the difference between you and the girl who writes a goodbye letter to her cats and jumps off the Coronado Bridge? Sure, she cut her days short all at once, but have you ever considered the possibility that you’re doing the same thing, just one day or a few hours at a time, over the course of a lifespan?
Get up and do something. Achieve that thing that scares you, or at least fail while daring greatly. Love someone completely, take that trip that you’ve been putting off since your freshman year of college and actually say what you think for once. At the end of the day, when you step in the shower and watch the mud, blood and sweat wash down the drain, you’ll know that you can go to sleep with another day in the victory column.
Tags:
inspiration,
philosophy
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Comments For This Entry
Posted by Darren Ellis at 01:39PM on September 23, 2008
Timely article Craig. I've become very aware lately of the various black holes in my life that suck away my precious time, and for the most part these black holes are of my own making. Am trying to set and stick to allocated time periods for email, writing, exercising, so that I have more time to spend with Taz, friends and family.
Keep the inspiration coming mate!
Posted by Craig at 05:01PM on September 23, 2008
An idea I got from Nate Green that works well for me is to work in productive bursts. Focus on getting done one or two things that really matter, and then actively relax with something enjoyable. Kind of like the interval spring version of working. It's much more effective to work that way than multi-tasking and staying busy and worried with a bunch of little things that ultimately don't matter.
Tim Ferris has said that he doesn't feel that a person is capable of more than two to four (I don't remember the exact numbers) hours of actual productive, intellectually demanding work in a given day. I've come across studies that confirm this by analyzing the daily activities of office workers that find them actually producing about an hour or even less per day of actual productive work. The rest is just filler.
Posted by Nate Green at 09:16AM on September 24, 2008
Now that's some good writing and wisdom, Craig.
Don't you have a spreadsheet with an "X" marking off all the days you've spent so far?
Can you enlighten me? I'd like to do this.
-Nate
Posted by Craig at 10:09AM on September 24, 2008
Nate,
I have a paper that I've been carrying around for years with a graph; eighty blocks tall and 52 blocks wide. The top left corner is marked with my birth date and the bottom right corner is marked with the same date, eighty years later. Every Tuesday I fill in a block.
It really keeps life in perspective.
Craig
Posted by Lynnae at 02:21PM on September 24, 2008
Craig,
Does your "block" include the week's activities or just the day's? Please elaborate...
Posted by Craig at 03:37PM on September 24, 2008
I don't write anything in. Each block is small; about a millimeter high and two wide. I just black each one out completely with ink. I'll do a blog post specifically about it in a week or two and include a picture.
Posted by sangita at 04:30AM on December 23, 2008
How many hours did I waste last year watching T V? How many did I waste in hte last few years? GROAN!! I dont feel like facing that fact. The last para of your post is inspiring.
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