"Do you want to quit this job?" the supervisor asked her young employee. "No," replied the young man. "It's just a lot. I'm so busy. I don't have any time." "I understand," she stated. "It is a full time job. But let me ask you, do you watch Netflix?" "Yeah." "How much time a day do you spend watching Netflix?" "I suppose 2-3 hours." "Do you keep up on social media?" "Yeah." "How much time do you spend?" "Uh, probably two hours a day." The supervisor paused, and then stated plainly, "No, you do have time. You just need to know where to spend it." Snap. Tweet. Binge watch. Over commit. Check fantasy football. Swipe through news headlines. Join one more sports league.
Being busy is a merit badge. Doing lots of things makes us feel significant. "I'm so busy" is code for "I'm so important." The problem is that we're busy with all the wrong things, and those things don't make us important. It used to be that only doctors and firefighters were on call. Now, everyone is. Our lives are constantly interrupted by the devices in our pockets. We've become slaves to what Stephen Covey called "the tyranny of the urgent." Unfortunately, our urgent things are mostly unimportant. No, you do have time. You have the same hours as everyone else. 24 in a day. 168 in a week. What are you doing with them? "Men have become tools of their own tools." - Henry David Thoreau What tools and instruments do you use? Do you use them or do they use you? "Every 'no' is a 'yes' to something else." What do you need to say "no" to? What things do you need to stop doing, so that you can start doing other, more important things? "Over-functioning is a lack of faith." "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary." (Luke 10:41-42) Do a few things well and do those things first. If there's time left over, there's always Netflix.
1 Comment
Edward
10/18/2017 01:14:23 pm
This seems to be in the air lately. This discilining more and more areas of my life has been something I've been working on for some time. I also just came across this secular video about the same thing. It's on YouTube search for the 6:15 minute video titled "Law of Attraction - Stay Disciplined(Psychology)".
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