Tag Archives: life

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Free Time Costs Time

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A year ago, I went to Italy. I did it for a program I no longer study and to learn about myself. I didn’t go with an American group. I went by myself and lived in an international student dorm for three months.

It was life-changing. The most life-changing part was that for three months, I had an insane amount of free time. I was in class only about seven hours a week, and my reading outside of class never took me more than ten hours a week. If I had consolidated all of that into one day, I would have been able to do it without any problem. Essentially, I had six days of free time.

I am rather sure that at no point in my life will I again have that much free time. Free time like that sounds wonderful, but it isn’t. It’s frustrating and heartbreaking and hard. It involves a lot of sleeping and a lot of dreaming and a lot of thinking about the world. And it’s aggravating.

I’ve been really super busy lately, and I find myself continuing to think back to those three months and thinking that it would be really great to go back to that. But then I remember how much I love most of the things I am doing right now and how much I hated doing nothing for extended periods of time and how even when I had a bunch of time, I still didn’t get everything done that I wanted to get done.

We don’t evaluate what we are doing often enough. We think that time grows on trees. We think that we can find it lying underneath couch cushions like lost change. We think that it is hidden at the bottom of bottles or in a kiss. It’s not, though. Steve Jobs once said:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

A year ago I went to Italy. That year isn’t being kept on a shelf.

What do you do with your time? Do you really love it?

 

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Nat King Cole is My Drill Sergeant

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There are two things I am really good at in my life right now. Social networking and posting daily blogs. My friend recently commented on how he was impressed by my ability to update every day. He didn’t realize that my motivations were maliciously selfish. I suppose that anyone who writes a blog is being a little egotistical, but I have taken it to a much darker level. I post every day because I love seeing my views go up, and I know that now that I have established this as a daily blog, to fail to post every day would result in a loss of views. And my ego wouldn’t be able to handle that.

Even though this is an entirely horrible motivation, it works because I get immediate pay-off for my work. The more posts I have, the more views I get. And while I’m worried about views, I am becoming a better writer, meeting new people, and learning about myself. The positives far outweigh the fact that this blog encourages evil, detestable behavior.

The same thing is true for social media. The more people I friend and follow on Twitter, the more people are likely to friend and follow me. And that’s an immediate reward, and I love it.

I have been obsessed recently with motivating myself and trying to figure out how to reward myself for working hard. I recently started listening to Pandora’s Easy Jazz station while I work. That motivates me because it makes me feel like all my work is the important travails of a man living in 1920s-1950s New York. And that’s pretty wonderful. I don’t own any suits, but when I work, I feel like I do.

But I’ve been trying to find creative ways to give myself immediate rewards that are actually beneficial. (I could watch television after every paper I finish or something but that seems like a bit of a waste of time.) I want rewards that relate directly to my work. I like my work; I do. It’s just… work.

Some people just came up with a really smart idea for motivating people to work out. It’s called Fitocracy. It’s basically a real life video game for working out. You enter in your workouts on this website, and it gives you points, and you get rewards and stuff. Super super cool. I want to find more creative ways for motivating myself, you know?

How do you motivate yourself?

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Justin Timberlake is the Eye to My Little Toe

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Apostle Paul used to be one of my least favorite writers in the Bible. I think I was kinda using him as a scapegoat. I could just kind of pawn all of the stuff that I didn’t like about the Bible off on him. That wasn’t very fair of me. Paul didn’t have it all that well. He was kinda being attacked wherever he went, and he had multiple parties trying to kill him. He was imprisoned a seemingly infinite number of times, and he lived most of his life alone with very few companions. But through all of that, the man is still one of the most loving and gracious writers that has ever lived.

I am finally starting to build an appreciation for this incredible man. It’s through no action of my own. A lot of people have been graciously walking me through it. But I was with a group the other day and we were talking about this passage Paul wrote, Romans 12:3-21. I don’t know if you are religious or whatever or how you feel about Jesus or whatever. It doesn’t really matter. Romans 12:3-21 is still just amazingly good. It would take me like centuries to talk about the whole thing, but I do want to talk about 3-8. So that’s what we are going to do.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

This is one of the most comforting passages I have ever read. Paul is telling us that we don’t have to do everything. We just have to do the stuff we are good at doing and then do it really well. I often get it into my head that I need to do everything. When I see people doing things that I can’t do and doing them really well, I get jealous. For instance, I want to be a performer sometimes. I fantasize about dancing, playing music, or acting in front of thousands of people. I really really really want to be Justin Timberlake.

The truth is, though, that I’ve not been blessed with the performance gifts. But what I can do is talk about complicated things in a way that a lot of people can understand and jive with. (Although, JT can probably do that as well. At least, he makes people jive.) While that may not be as glamorous as bringing sexy back, Paul says it is just as important.

Paul compares the Church to a human body. None of us is all of the body, but we are all a part of it. Just because the eyes get to see the world doesn’t mean that the little toe is any less important. Do you think the little toe ever gets jealous of the eyes?

What do you bring to the table? Tell me what you think. Would you like to see more posts where I talk about Apostle Paul and Justin Timberlake?