Running out of time

“I’m running out of time” is a phrase we use a lot. Lately these words have been at the core of my reflections because I’m excessively using them too. But they are nonsense. 

The time I have is my life and saying that I don’t have time equates to saying I’m choosing not to live. Every day I have 24 hours of life. I simply have to be more careful in what I choose to focus on with passion and devotion. 

When I say “I’m running out of time”, this reflects that I have made a number of choices. But the interesting thing is understanding whether these are the best choices for me and my time. Is the time I’m spending on my work, my duties, my relationships, making me happy? Is the time I’m spending with people, on social media or in front of the television, making me happy?

If you honestly answer these simple questions you will already have a lot of answers. But you must avoid the trap of your brain providing the usual litany of excuses and justifications like “I hate the work, but I have to do it because I have a family to support”, “I have to see these people because otherwise I will lose some opportunities”, “It’s vital to my business that I stay on social media even if I think it is a waste of time”…

No one is pointing a gun at your head stopping you choosing something else or choosing better. You just need to learn to get rid of the thousand limiting thoughts and beliefs that fill your mind and get back in the driving seat of your life. 

Children of insane consumerism that we are, we have learned to consume time and not to live.

A few days ago I was reading these words by Jacob Needleman: "In the world as well as in ourselves, the time is disappearing because we have lost the habit of consciously living our life, the habit of paying attention to conscious ourselves as we live our lives”. This sounded so true to me because I know that we are simply and dangerously distracted. Our thoughts oscillate between problems that represent our past and worries that represent our future, and so our minds no longer focus on the present, the only time that we have to live in. Without our conscious attention, our life is simply passing by, without the feeling of being really lived.

Now I know what my mantra will be for 2016: "I am my time" which to me means “I'm choosing my life in every single moment."

(picture courtesy Flickr-Dickson Phua)