I had originally found a great note when randomly surfing online, back when I started thinking more and more about how quickly we can be consumed by things and wasting time. It seems now the original site is down or having some type of server issues, it has to be the slowest loading site possible so I may need to come back and do an update to this piece. The one I read though is during a day I was surfing around watching TED videos and had also managed to catch the video of 1000 Awesome Things.
Of course while the video was short compared to some of the other TED clips, it still made me starting thinking about the time we waste, why we waste it and how hypocritical so many people are saying once thing while doing another. “Yes I waste time, but I have this and this and that to do”. I think we have all fallen into this waste pit at one point or another, some of us a few times as if one time was not enough to teach us that wasting time eats at us like a rotting disease might.
Now part of the reason I link directly to Neil’s site is sheer laziness; its a good reminder for me to finally sit down and buy the book. Another part is that its nice to share when you care, and this way readers here (the far and few between) can do the same. Maybe it will inspire others to stop wasting so much time and appreciate the little things. We tend to hear about that growing up but never really think about it until we wake up one day with a face palm thinking about how much time we have already wasted. When you are a kid and an adult tells you that “these are the best years of your life”, they are not kidding. We will not get those years back, just like we will not get back the adult years we waste. What are you going to do when you are at the end, ask for a few more good years? Doubtful, you could ask of course, but I doubt the wish would be granted.
Just recently I had the wonderful delight to slow it down with some snow days. I reside in a place that sometimes gets snow, but nothing like I remember having each winter growing up in the northern states. When the snow gets up to your knees and school is canceled for a week at a time, its great. Those are the times you end up remembering. Building forts made of snow and ice, amazing for a kid right? This year we were blessed with a few days of snow, and then a few extra of ice atop. This managed to slow things down to the crawl of a small turtle just learning how to hold its balance. Anyone remember The Tortoise and the Hare? Great book, one that I will always love, slow but steady always wins the race. With our winter storms though, we actually had time in our busy & somewhat insane lives to slow it down and enjoy the time we have.
The free time was actually extra time for me to sit and reflect. Some of the best ideas come to me during the the late hours of the night, most times before I plan to close my eyes for the day and drift off to a peaceful sleep (until a phone beeps with a notification, the off change a phone rings, a child wakes or an evil cat attacks something to startle me). Right now I am working to slow down with the rush that is life & speed up with the wasting of time, rather convert that wasted time into useful time and see how far on the progress meter I can get to. Many things are in a change, we are in a constant change during all periods of our lives. I am just hitting an early mid way point that is going to drastically change the pace of it all, for the better of course.
