Over the weekend we set the clocks back an hour, which meant that we gained an extra hour that night. The tendency is for people to jump in there with, “I think you meant to say an extra hour of sleep.”
Every four years in February we get an entire extra day on the calendar due to it being a Leap Year and thus there being 29 days in the second month of the year instead of the usual 28 on the calendar.
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An extra hour. An extra day. It might not sound like a lot because the former is once a year and the latter is every four years. But what do you do with the extra time you’re given?
Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, what’s your outlook? Do you wallow in “it’s too early to be this dark” and sulk away lazily as though you couldn’t possibly muster the energy to be productive? Or do you take the “early bird gets the worm” approach and push on past five or six o’clock cheerful and raring to (keep) go(ing)?
Time is the ultimate equalizer. It’s the one thing that we all have the same amount of in the sense that we all get 24 hours a day. No matter how rich or poor you are or your religious or political beliefs or your ethnicity, heritage, education, or other demographic, we all have exactly the same amount of time, including that extra hour or extra day.
What a precious commodity that is, yet it’s something that is far too easily taken for granted.
It’s ironic, too, given how easily we throw around expressions like, “If I get the time I’m going to” or asking someone, “Do you think you have time for” and others along those same lines.
Bigger picture, we think we have lots of time left on the earth.
The book we said we were going to write continues to be a fleeting thought in the transom of our mind. Someone else says, “At some point in time I’m going to start a podcast of my own.” Have you ever heard the person who claims, “You know, I wrote a screenplay once!” Oh yeah? And where did that go?
It makes me think of the hilarious 1982 movie, “Night Shift,” starring Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton and the latter’s character saying, “I’m an idea man, Chuck.” Later in the movie he confesses that he never acted on any of the ideas he spoke into his recorder.
Sadly, we all know people like that; they have tons of ideas, but rarely, if ever, act on any of them. I hope that you can just relate because someone’s name immediately popped into your head and that this doesn’t describe you.
So again, what are you doing with the time that you have?
Remember that comparison is the thief of joy. It’s not about, “Yeah, (insert name or relationship here) did (insert accomplishment here) and I always said I was going to do that too.” What’s in your heart? What will truly bring you joy? Where does your real passion lie?
What’s that? Passion projects aren’t money makers? I realize that we all have bills to pay. But does this mean that you sit around at a job you don’t like and simply daydream?
Time, it bears repeating, is currency. You have the same amount as everyone else. I could say that the more you waste the more that you’ll end up disappointed, and you’ll ask, “The more money I waste or the more time I waste” and I’ll simply say Yes.
I’m not telling you that the only way you’ll succeed is if you stay up until 2:30 in the morning working your fingers to the bone. But I will say that if you’re already mentally checking out by 2:30 in the afternoon – or 5:30pm because it’s getting dark outside – you shouldn’t expect results to appear magically.
I would love to know how many times a day the average person checks to see what time it is. Never mind the obvious reason. Why are you really checking the time? Is it because you want to know when you can clock out (figuratively and literally) or is it because you’re on a roll and want to keep the momentum going?
You were just given an extra hour this weekend. What did you do with it?
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