Time Leeches

I would like to prelude with this statement, this particular article has taken me the longest to write find out why. Do you ever find that most of the time you don’t own time but instead time owns you? Let’s talk about Time Leeches for a minute and how they completely consume our free time. They are people, events or even, you in your own life that which procures your time. Ah hah well there’s a relief now we know exactly where the source is coming, we are cured right? Obviously it’s not that easy. The fact of the matter is; where the problem comes from was something you’ve figured out on your own. The tougher part to cease is the how and why we let these facts have such a big impact in our life. Here’s why: most of the time these time leeches are either semi fun, really fun or easy to do. Like Jack Nicolson said in the 1970’s suspense killer thriller “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy”. We as human beings naturally aspire towards pleasure and dissipate from pain. This is simply why identifying the source is not enough to change an adversary like time leeches. They glide under our radar of awareness before we can even put our foot down to squash the problem; with, tactics as simple as a suggestion. Simple suggestions are stronger than we think because they get covered underneath our consciousness like a scoop of ice cream with all the sprinkles. Enough of these daily servings of suggestions made of sugar; will have the power to rot our time like our teeth. Here is an example. Let’s say hypothetically you were keep track in a personal log of a 12 week 15 pound weight loss plan. Which means every night you would write down how you successful refused late night snacks, McDonalds trips and certainly Starbucks Iced Vanilla Latte’s with extra vanilla syrup. On top of that we are going to reclaim with serious authority our membership once more at the nearest gym, to do some crazy cardio work out that will whip us back into tip top shape. So what happens, how can such careful planning and decision making go wrong? Here how: Day 1 I am so pumped I killed my workout today, I will lose this weight once and for good, nothing is going to stop me. Day 4, I am sore all over I definitely should not have done that last crunch, I think I might have popped a blood vessel. Day 8, captains log: okay it’s been like a week, I know i was suppose to go to the gym today, but I just got invited to my coworkers party for after hours. The group and I are going out for Harry’s birthday to this BBQ ribs buffet. I know I won’t make it to the gym today but I'm not going to splurge I’m going to eat healthy. Day 9, okay well last night Harry asked me to just have a tiny bite of his ribs just for a taste. Okay I know I shouldn’t have ordered the full slab but the damn thing was so good, but I will make it up with today’s work out. Day 10, well I was planning to go the gym today but I have to run a bunch of important errands today, I’ll definitely it up tomorrow. Day 28 the guilty confession, I know I haven’t written in almost 3 weeks but I’m tied down. I mean everything ranging from kids, to work , Sunday and Monday night football, the 700 billion dollar bail out, birthday parties and let’s not forget the presidential debate. Honestly I don’t think I can manage to do this work out plan this month. I just don’t have enough time but maybe next month.
Now I know this is not exactly how it happens, but I do know that the results are generally the same. Intentions for goals are usually not on target, without a relentless effect to avoid getting attacked by time leeches. Meaning between the 1st day and 50th day we set out to do something, if we are not always focused on guarding our time, life happens. Life; has no problem filling your time with something other than what you set out to do and the thing that we want most never comes to fruition. Let me tell it to you straight folks if I received 100 dollars for every time I allowed someone, something and especially myself for leeching my time. I honestly would have a million dollar cash now and I'd be writing this article in Fiji. I believe that understanding the value of our time, at times is more important than the actually goal desired to be fulfilled. This being said, i do live in the real world I know that everyone has strict time blocks occupied that aren’t flexible at times.
Which many include God, families, jobs and commitments or even worse parole; if you violate parole there is a real strict time block. It’s the remaining free time that we must protect. This vital protection can be analogous to a security guard protecting President’s Obama's life. The best way that I know how to attack any problem is to ask questions? So here are a few to get you started. How much free time do you have this week to really focus on something you want to do? Stop for a minute think about it and write it on a piece of paper, (really do this before reading on I promise there is a point)? If the answer is not a lot of time that’s cool you must have busy schedule, but now I will ask the same question with a little twist, if I were to give you 1000 dollars for every hour of your free time that you keep this week how much would you have? Write that down. Is the number the same? Is the number different? Did things you originally think were important fall by the wayside when you could get an extra 1000 bucks for it. If the numbers are staggeringly different you have really got to start looking at your time that it is yours more valuably because if you put it to good use it will pay you the 1000 dollar per hour in dividends for the rest of your life for every new goal you accomplish by effectively utilizing your time.

Finding Passion

Passion has become such a diluted word. It has been diluted by the likes of corporate office executives trying to inspire employees to becoming more productive. Passion is not just a word you can throw enough times on the wall in the hopes to create synergy. Just like it's not a definition you can extrapolate from the dictionary into your mind in order to feel this feeling. You don't just do passion, you live passion.Simply because passion is a lifestyle. We can't teach a kid to ride a horse and expect him to become passionate about it. Just like a boss can't tell an adult she better be passionate about her job or else she will have to start looking for a new one. Passion is a very difficult thing to find if we are naive and scatterbrained. I myself am still a little scatterbrained to some degree. See before I enrolled to rehab for scattered brains, my mind would be fixed on 100 different thoughts. My focus was all over the place I would find my quality time overextend via going to non informative events, dating shallow girls and worst of all getting influenced by people who had little relevance in my life today. I was a sheep.

I use to feel sorry for that odd little girl in high school who never got invited to any parties or social events because she was different. Yet at the end of the year that same girl got the best designer award, got voted to be the next Versace and was recieved a full ride to the Fashion Institute of Technology. Instead of acknowledging her talents and finding my own motivation. Me and a group of friends found it appropriate to make some immature comment about her probably never getting laid, like that was so important. In retrospect this was clearly an immature way of rationalizing my inability to find what makes me shine. See she knew something that took me a while to figure out, it’s okay to be different (as long as you’re not still a fan of Peewee’s Playhouse or bizarre like that). She knew herself well and lived her passion. Something some of us never make time for, here’s why. I never really had the chance to truly get to know me or what I liked to do because I occupied my time doing the “norm”. The norm is the art of doing everything and nothing all at once. Why? For starters it was easy and another it is mildly entertaining but never a conclusive destination. Controlling our time is difficult if we don’t know where our priorities lie.

I truly believe that finding our passion is quite simple. Once we distance ourselves from just doing the norm and focus on us. Two things happen we become more self aware and focus on finding our strengths. You know one of the most common objection I get is, "I’m too busy I just don’t have the time". And my response is always, what more important you "being unfulfilled or fulfilled"? we find passion by eliminating the television, not picking the phone up every whim just because some is calling us right NOW and not getting caught up in the billions of things that Internet has to offer. The only way that this is a true sacrifice is if you are making hundred's of thousands if not millions of dollars from one of all of these sources of entertainment. Otherwise I would strongly suggest invest an hour of our daily entertainment time to find what makes our body and mind work congruently. Investigate that feeling that you get inside that makes you feel at ease with yourself. Observe your actions when it feels like time is flying yet standing still. Remember, for those who search for it self-discovery is one of the biggest challenge you must face, it doesn't happen right away. You have to be patient with it, but if you truly do focus, it will come. Once you find your gift its up to you to decide if you will keep it for you self or share it with the world.