"Words To Live By" is a miniseries on personal development; this is the first of a number of weekly installments. After this week, each subsequent piece will be on making the most of the time you have here, for yourself.
Not a day goes by that I don't wish I had more time. On the first day of high school, a teacher stood in front of the freshman class, ripping up denominations of bills. He challenged us to invest our time, not waste it, as if it were real money. At that instant I couldn't appreciate this message.
A similar message was given to me as I arrived at college. My parents gifted me an engraved track baton with the message "Nic, do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson." At the end of move in day, my dad handed me the baton and told me, "Your mother and I's time is up, and yours has just begun. We know you will run strong." Again, at that moment I couldn't appreciate this message.
After some time at college, I learned a thing or two about the underlying meanings of these messages.
Firstly, we are all greater fools. It's an economic term. In economics, if you make an unsound investment, greater fool theory postulates that the money you spent is a sound investment because someone is always willing to pay a higher price. That person is the greater fool. You were foolish for making an unsound investment, but the greater fool bought it off you and believes he/she can succeed where you did not. It wasn't until we studied the greater fool theory in class until I realized this was the message I learned the first day of high school.
Our parents, friends, and anyone who told you to "soak up the glory days" before you took off for college is the fool. They paid some amount of time, wasted time, figuring out what to do with all their free time and their lives. We, the greater fools, are paying even more time than they ever did to figure it out what to do with ourselves.
We pay more in time because of the distractions we have. Unprecedented access to technology consumes attention. You can bet our parents didn't spend any time playing GTA V, watching Vines, checking Instagram to see how many likes they got, and otherwise. They didn't have the increased level of competition in school, the higher standards for grades, or the egregious prices. Sure, our advancement is without question better, but it did come at a cost of time, not physical resources.
It is my dad's quote that I find particularly insightful for our generation, though. Ralph Waldo Emerson implores us to go and do what hasn't been done before, and make it the status quo. In a sense, that's what it means to be a millennial. We are natives to the technological age. Any advancements that arise from our age come from us, and we are leaving a trail for future progress.
My dad is also correct, that the baby-boomers' time is almost up and ours has just begun. In front of us, untold achievement and progress. The words to live by are as simple as this: run strong. Run strong, I've learned, means to move forward with purpose. It's easy to be complacent. It's easy to not know what you want to do. It's easy to use your free time for nothingness.
Millennials are categorized by a belief in postmodernism's stance that society is perpetually unresolvable, and forever incomplete. If that's something we believe, and it's something we want to change, then run strong.
If it bugs you that you don't have a plan for something, make a plan. If there's a skill you want to learn, learn it. If there's an event you want to go to or person you want to see, then show up. Write, listen, network -- challenge yourself to do something everyday other than sit and watch. In this lifestyle of staying moving, that's how you make investments with your time that will eventually pay dividends.
Returning to my first thought, the words I live by gave me a fresh perspective on what to do with my time here. I just don't have enough time to get it all done. If you feel the same way, don't lament about the time you don't have. Appreciate what you do have, and move forward.
