Time
Time is our most precious gift in
life. It is an undefined,
undetermined resource that we have limited control over. This lesson is generally learned far
too late in life. So how do you spend your time? Who do you spend your time with? What makes you happy?
What brings you the most energy?
If you spend time doing the things that you love with the people you
enjoy most in life, you will be happier, healthier and you will truly maximize
the time you have on this earth.
Have you considered what would
happen if you simply surrounded yourself with the people and things that make
you feel great? What if you spent
more time doing the things that you truly love to do? What if you could have more time, feel more love and
discover amazing things about yourself?
Would you do it? Would you
make difficult decisions after asking yourself the challenging questions?
Do you surround yourself with the
people you love the most in life?
Do
you surround yourself with people that maximize your potential?
Do you surround yourself with the
people that help you grow and become the person you always wanted to be?
Do you do the things in life that
you have always wanted to do?
Do you live your passion and spend
time doing the things that bring you the most happiness?
Do you maximize the time with the
people you love?
Do you eliminate the relationships
with the people that bring you down?
Do you tell the important people in
your life that you love them?
Do you wake up with a smile on your
face?
Do you cry while watching “The
Secret Millionaire?” (Guilty pleasure)
Do you feel that you get the same
amount of love that you put out in the world?
When you eat chocolate, do you
close your eyes and feel the chocolate melt on the tip of your tongue? (Another
guilty pleasure)
These
are truly important questions.
Life-altering questions.
The answers might disturb you.
The answers might unlock a tremendous feeling of change and excitement.
Allow me to make things very easy for you:
Do more of the things you enjoy
doing.
Stop allowing the people you don’t
even like to influence your life.
Stop making excuses. Don’t stand in your own way.
Do what you love. Love what you do.
Sounds easy right? It isn’t. Now is the time that you have to take an inventory of your
time, effort, friendships and relationships that impact your life. You will now have to make some
challenging decisions. Sometimes
there are some sobering realities in the answers to the questions above. You may even feel guilty or sad about
making the best decisions for yourself.
But it will be worth it.
Happiness is worth it. Love
is worth it. Being the most
awesome “you” is worth it. Living
the best life is worth it.
To bring this all into perspective,
imagine the alternative. What if
you keep doing the same things that you are doing now. Will things get better? Maybe. Will things miraculously
change? Unlikely. Will you be any happier or more awesome
by doing the same things that don’t bring you happiness? No need to answer that.
Allow me to share a story that is
near and dear to my heart. This is a happy story with a sad beginning. In May of 2011, one of the most
important people in my life was taken from me. My father, a great man, was 61 years old when he
passed. Throughout his life, he
was unselfish enough to help me understand the greatest things in life. To this day, I practice his
ideals. My father was a simple
man. When he laughed, he laughed
whole-heartedly. When he spoke, I
listened diligently. I attribute a
lot of who I am and who I am becoming to my father. During his 61 years of life, my father loved. My father felt love. He didn’t spend much time with other
people, but when he did, they were true friends. People he admired.
The time we spent together was special. There is no one else I respected more on this planet than my
father. The reason I am telling
you this story is to illustrate how precious time can be. The Friday before my father’s passing,
I made dinner for him. Nothing
fancy, just a couple of hamburgers and some sweet potatoes. He didn’t care for the sweet potatoes
because they were the healthier alternative. We ate dinner, shared stories over dessert and parted ways
after the traditional hug and a kiss on his cheek. The last words that I said to my father were “I love
you.” He returned the gesture and
repeated the words that I spoke to him.
Little did I know, that was the last time that I would ever hear his
voice. Imagine if I didn’t tell
him that I loved him? Imagine if I
didn’t hug and kiss him one last time? One simple decision can affect your
entire life.
Life is incredibly special. Life is delicate. Life is a gift. Life is so frickin’ awesome that
sometimes I don’t even know what to do.
Life should be filled with high fives, hugs and kisses. Life should be about other people, but
most of all; life is about you!
Life is about you making the best decisions for yourself. You are the one that has to live with yourself
at the end of each day. You’re the
one that will be asking yourself the hard questions. You are the one that has control over your decisions.
So go out there and make the hard
decisions, they are ones that build the most character. They are also the ones that will
realize the most happiness.
Thank you for taking the time to
read the Individual Catalyst. I
truly hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it!
