I’ve been traveling a lot over the past year or so and on one of my trips while standing in line I just started thinking about how much of life we spend waiting. We wait and stand around to get into a movie, to board a plane, to get food, to get into a club, to buy a cup of coffee, to purchase groceries, and to pretty much do anything else. Thinking about all of that really made me realize how short life is. This doesn’t even really have to do specifically with time spent in lines but just time we spend not doing what we want to do. We work 9 hour days, spend 6 hours sleeping, another few hours getting ready and eating; at the end of it all we really don’t have THAT much time in life. We always hear people talk about how they wish they would have done things differently in their life or how they wish they could be young again. I don’t want to wish any of those things, my goal is to go through life and then look back on it when I’m older and say, “I did everything that I wanted to do.”
Erin Kotecki Vest recently put up a post called “Possibles” which I think all of you should read, it pretty much echoes the same sentiment of, life is short make the most of it. I’m 26 and in just a few short years I’ll be 30, which for me is scary as hell because there’s still a lot more I want to do. A lot of my acquaintances are already married and have been for a few years and I have absolutely no idea how they do it. I can’t possible imagine being married at this point in my life.
It’s funny to hear how people define happiness. Oftentimes when you ask someone where they want to be in the next few years of their life or what would make them happy, the answer always involves something to do with money. “I want to be making X amount a year, ” or “I want to be the CEO of company X and own an island.” Granted, financial security is important I just don’t think it’s a good way to measure success or happiness. I had this conversation recently and my response was that I want to have enough time in my life to do the things that I want to do and to live my life the way I want to live it.
If I had the choice between being the CEO of a large company making millions a year and working 12 hour days or making 100k a year (or less) while being able to do it at my own pace and at my own schedule, I’d always pick the latter. What about you?
Life is short and the most valuable currency that we can own isn’t money, it’s time. He who dies with the most amount of money doesn’t win. A millionaire dies just as quick as a “thousand-aire.” Make the most of what you have and try to experience all you can.
Life is short
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