WannaBeNormal - My Search for Peace, Love & Empathy

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967)

I wrote a little bit about my plan for success, for following your dreams. I mentioned time stealers, but didn’t go into detail so I wanted to define it for you all. Time stealers are things that hold you back from a goal or dream. They come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. They can come steal your time in the form of people, bad habits, inanimate objects pretty much anything can be a time stealer if YOU let it.

The first and biggest time stealers are our own Worry and Regret. If you think about it logically, neither make any sense. What good is spending time worrying about the future? You can plan for it, but worrying isn’t planning, it serves no purpose. You sit there and say what if this happens, what if that happens. What does that do? Is it effective in anyway? What about regret? Why waste time kicking your own ass? We all make mistakes, we are all human, seems to me when we make a mistake, the best use of our time would be to fix the mistake, learn from the mistake and move past the mistake. Dwelling on it wont help, it wont change what’s already done, so why do we waste our time going over and over it in our minds thinking about what we could have done differently. You did it, its over learn from it, fix it if you can, and move on. You aren’t doing yourself or anyone else any favors by dwelling on it.

The second biggest time stealer in our lives are the drama magnets. You know who they are, we all have them, they disguise themselves as friends, but they suck every drop of energy and time we have that we can spend on other things with problems that are either imagined or self created. Now we all have friends also that go through there share of bad luck, that’s not what I am talking about. These people are self absorbed, you will know, they aren’t really your friend, but your theirs. They might even say some of the right things at first that make you think they care. They don’t, its not their fault, its not in their make up to care about anything other than themselves. At most to them you’re an after thought, something to think about when they run out of things to think about themselves for a few seconds, then they remember, and its back to ME ME ME again. They come to you with their drama, and they ask your advice, so you give it, and either they tell you why it wont work, or they ignore you and continue with their problems, poor me poor me. Or sometimes it’s the opposite, you get the aren’t I great speech. Listen to what I do what I have done what I am going to do, I am so special, you need me, tell me you need me etc etc etc. Its ok to spend a limited amount of time on these people, they need friends too, but remember, ever minute you spend on these people, who do nothing for you, is a minute your NOT spending working on your goals and dreams. Ask yourself, is it worth it? Are they worth it? The answer lies within you no one can tell you what to do or who you should be friends with, but you need to weigh everything carefully when budgeting your time, its much like budgeting your money. So when you spend time with these people, be realistic with yourself, consider it throwing dollar bills out the window because that’s how much good its doing you. When your friends with someone, its an equal thing. It may not always be 50/50, sometimes its 20/80 or 40/60, but it evens out. THAT is the difference between a friend and a time stealer, it will never even out.

The third time stealers are inanimate objects. Video games, the computer, TV, sometimes the phone, they are time stealers. When budgeting your time, factor in free time, we all need some down time, and these activities are fine for free time, and of course two need to be utilized in most professions for business purposes, but they need to be limited. Its so easy to get caught up in them and spend hours when it only feels as if minutes have passed, so we need to consciously make an effort to avoid getting carried away with them when we could be doing something more productive.

I guess the bottom line is carried away. Schedule yourself some down time to do whatever it is that relaxes you and makes you happy, but avoid getting carried away with these and other time stealers. They offer no benefits, you will reap no rewards, and often times hurt yourself. We are the only ones responsible for ourselves, for our dreams and ambitions. When your makin millions doing what you enjoy, you can sit around and waste whole days if your so inclined, until then, stay on track, keep yourself focused, and you will make it happen.