960 Minutes
960 Minutes. According to my calculations and my current schedule, that’s how many minutes, approximately, averaged, that I spend awake out of the 1,440 minutes contained within each “day.” 960 Minutes.
Therefore, I strongly consider each of them to be MY minutes and they belong to no one, but me. I, alone, have the choice where and with whom I choose to share my minutes and what situations or emotions are (or aren’t) worthy of utilizing these precious commodities.
When applicable, I find myself repeating the phrase: “Choose how you use.” Just as you ask yourself before making a purchase, “Is this really worth my money?” — ask yourself before engaging in negativity or cynicism, “Is this really worth my minutes?” Before you start worrying about something that may never materialize, ask yourself, “Is it worth my minutes?”
Today, we watch how we would spend 960 dollars more carefully than how we would spend the same amount of minutes, our daily ration of time, though the latter is far more precious to behold and should be budgeted with the utmost attention to detail. Instead, often we’ll spend our 960 minutes as though they were recyclable or in endless supply.
Enjoy your minutes!
When you lay your head down tonight and preview in your mind how you spent your allotted 960 minutes, which words will best describe the answer? Did you share your minutes with contentment, laughter and joy or did you choose to share too much of this finite resource today with anger, resentfulness and aggravation?
A good example of my new thought process was played out the other day in the parking lot of my local grocery store. A woman (dialing her cell phone) ignored a stop sign and pulled directly out in front of my car. With a dexterity that would have made Mario Andretti envious, I swerved and somehow missed hitting her SUV. Afterwords, however, when she should have chosen to express gratitude, I turned and noticed her hand gestures, which unmistakably and vehemently expressed sentiments quite the opposite. My blood pressure rose rapidly, but through gritted teeth, I repeated to myself silently, “Choose how you use … choose how you use.”
I chose to continue to drive forward, unresponsive to her provocational actions. I’m not going to fib and say I didn’t spend five or ten minutes in anger or distress over the incident because I certainly did. However, I then let it go. I let it go. I did not let it fester and eat up more minutes than it could have. The situation simply wasn’t worthy of using up my minutes. In fact, writing these two paragraphs is the first time I’ve recalled the incident since.
I remember thinking that evening, as a strategy for my new 960 minutes theory, that maybe I could stay awake ten minutes later doing something I enjoy, just to recoup the lost time!
To summarize, I say BE MISERLY, GREEDY AND SELFISH with your minutes! Don’t let others dictate how you spend them. They are completely non-refundable; you can’t buy more, you can’t borrow someone else’s and you can’t get them back once they’re gone.
If only the rules stated that when we reached 90 years of age, we could simply write a letter to the “Life Customer Service Department” stating,
“In 2008, I spent 10,950 minutes filled with aggravation and frustration. since the customer is always right, I am officially requesting that those misspent minutes be added back to my life’s account. I will await your confirmation. Thank you.”
Life has its moments and unfortunately, there are times when sadness and despair are inescapable. However, 30 minutes per day spent in avoidable discontent equates to more than one week per year of your life; seven days, which could have instead been lived … enjoyed … relished and celebrated. It’s your choice.
So today, instead of repeating the overused expression, “Have a good day,” I say, “Enjoy your minutes!”
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