TIME

TIME

Though I briefly touched on the subject of time, and the management thereof in my first writeup, it bears going into more detail. After all, it is the most valuable commodity we have. If I may, permit me to begin with an excerpt from Seneca's On the Shortness of Life:

"You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while, you bestow on some person or thing that is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals."

Now, with that being said this subject can be broken into two key parts.

1) Your perception of time relative to actuality.

2) The substantive quality of that time relative to how it is spent.

To address the first point, I build off of the sentiments of Seneca. If you are not yet engaged in some highly protracted opportunity, you can't know just how much free time you really have. It may feel as though you are busy with various small tasks throughout the day, but I can assure you that this is not what busy feels like. Now, to say that is to say that you only have that time in the short term. The reality is that you have far fewer of these "non-busy" days than you realize. There is fast approaching a time when opportunity will knock at your door, and you will enter "start-up mode". This means you will be pressed to find a moment to read, study, workout, or even have your own thoughts. Any relaxation or free time will become but a mere figment of the imagination. During this time, you will think back to your "non-busy" days with deep regret that you didn't do more.

This leads to the second point. What exactly makes up this ethereal more? More of building your personal foundation. This translates to reading non-business-related texts, which will be harder to justify down the line. More going for long, time-intensive workouts and runs, which will be impossible to schedule later on. It means spending more time milking the things that you currently take for granted, and that will be slightly different for every person. Only you can answer that question, but make no mistake that it is a question that you will be forced to answer in peace, or through the grief-stricken mirror called retrospect.

Time is running out.