We live in a 24/7 world. The internet, advertisements, and social media are constantly vying for our attention. It seems like we get more and more on our plate every year and time only accelerates with each melting candle on our cake. So let me ask you...
Are you living the life you imagined for yourself when you were a teen?
Most likely the answer is no. If you're lucky, maybe it's even better than you dreamed of. For the rest of us, the reason we don't have what we hoped for comes down to one thing...time. Your time has been stolen.
Today's book On The Shortness of Life from Seneca dives into humans' primary concern...time. Seneca is an old Roman philosopher and as it turns out, even back then people complained about not having enough time to do the things they want.
Now to be clear, by "stolen", it's not that there is this mass conspiracy of "the man" holding you down (well maybe lol), but rather we have been conditioned to put other people's time ahead of ours. In the beginning, our time was exchanged for love and security (You go to school as a kid because your parents/society tell you to).
You didn't have much of a choice when you were a tot. You needed food and shelter, and society tells us school is what you do, so you listen. Your time was "stolen" in exchange for having your needs met but it's not like that anymore, and that's what is so crazy: the worst part is now you are doing it to yourself.
"They did it to you, but now you are doing it to yourself." - Elliott Hulse
That's pretty profound. You were trained to suppress your urges in order to fit into a properly functioning society, but now you are the one frivolously wasting your time on things that don't matter...and no one is telling you to.
You're the one on Facebook. You're the one watching the same shows over and over on Netflix. You're the one playing fantasy sports and watching other people pursue their dreams on the field. How much of that has actually contributes to your end goal? Do you even have an end goal?
We all do it. What's crazy is that we are frugal with many things, just on things that don't matter. If your friends or family asked you to borrow $10,000, or insert dollar amount outside your comfort zone, how many of us would say yes? We are frugal with money, which we can always get more of, yet with our limited time, we waste it on the dumbest shit.
“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.” - Seneca
We don't go hard after what we want. The job we want, the relationships we want, the life we want because deep down we think we have time....we think that we are going to live forever. We are not. (#youregonnadie - GaryVee)
“You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire” - Seneca
We are paralyzed by fears and lazy about what we want and that's how you end up on your death bed with a whole bunch of regrets. How do we reverse this?
Steal back your time.
Now we don't have to immediately cut out all the time-wasters in our life, but why engage in any conversation or practice that isn't helping you get what you want? Slowly cut out things that don't add to your life. you can still relax an indulge occasionally but at least do it consciously. You don't have to cut out all fun but have some fucking priorities that are slightly longer term than the next few hours.
Why isn't getting a job you enjoy more important than your fantasy team?
A practical experiment that has worked for me to get more time is: No more news. One TV show that you binge watch at the end of the season, no other shows. When someone starts complaining in a conversation you literally excuse yourself or change the topic. And the hardest one based off my childhood was no more sports except playoffs and the Patriots. As a kid I used to know just about every player on the Celts, Bruins, Patriots, Red Sox and even most of their stats. I'd watch nearly every game. That information and time invested did nothing for me...so I cut it out. The results are better relationships, more money, more happiness and most importantly...
more time to do the things I like.
Thank you,
-Dylan
Bonus: Making Money From Time
Interestingly enough, some of the greatest entrepreneurs or our time, including Gary Vaynerchuk from above, say that time is becoming the greatest commodity. Which means if you want to make money, find out how to sell people their time back.
"Think about it. What does Uber sell? Uber sells time." Gary Vee
Shou
All images from https://pixabay.com
