Time is your most valuable and precious asset. You have a limited amount of it and you never get it back. How you spend your time is how you spend your life. So, how do you want to spend your life?
I find it helpful to think of my life and time as a pie chart. Part of your life will be spent learning, part of your life will be spent working, and part of your life will be spent with friends and family. Part of your life will be spent watching TV and part of it will be spent exercising or folding the laundry. Think about how you want the pie chart of your time and life to look. If you have found work that you really love, then maybe you want to spend one third of your life working, but if you have a job only to pay the bills, then you probably want to minimize the amount of your time and life that you spend working.
Taking time off is important to me. I have always been uneasy with the idea of retiring at the end of my life and then relaxing because what if I die early? Or what if I’m not healthy enough to do the things that I want to do when I retire? It seems like a safer strategy to relax along the way, so I have incorporated regular breaks into the middle of my working years so that I can take parts of my retirement early. This may mean that I’ll have to continue to work longer into my life but I’m okay with that. As the wise Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Money often costs too much.” If time off is more important to you than money, then you might take a job that gives you 4 weeks off each year instead of just 2 weeks. Or maybe you’ll even decide to become a teacher so that you can have the entire summer off. Whichever you path you take, make sure it’s a conscious choice. Figure out what you want, and then figure out how to get it. Figuring out what you want is the first step in getting it. Not everyone figures out what they want.
I saw a T-shirt that said, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” It’s funny because it’s absurd but it’s sad because it’s actually how some people seem to live their lives. Some people buy fancy cars only because they can and only because it will impress the people that they want to impress, not so much because they have a natural love of cars. How likely is it that all rich people happen to have a natural love of cars? Very unlikely. Why don’t some of them have really fancy yoga mats and basic cars? They like the status that a fancy car carries with it more than they like the car. Now, there’s nothing wrong with making money and nothing wrong with spending it, but just make sure that whatever you decide to go after has some value to you. Because otherwise you might end up alone in your garage one day looking at your fancy cars wondering why you didn’t build a yoga studio instead of a 4-car garage. It’s worth spending some time thinking about what you value and what you want before following the desires of the masses.
For the first many years of your life you will be judged and given stickers and stars and ribbons and certificates and letter grades and number scores. After that you will get money, and possibly more recognition and awards. It’s important during all this time that you take the time to pause and to be the judge of yourself. Are you proud of you? Are you becoming the person you want to be? Or are you just collecting things that look good on a resume for a job that you don’t want? As the Trappist monk Thomas Merton put it, “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” Take time to look around you and see what boat you’re in, who the captain is, where the river is flowing, and how sturdy the life raft looks. And learn how to swim.
Explore many different areas of life before you decide where you want to be. Once you’re in a certain area, it may seem like the whole world to you. On the soccer field, soccer skills are everything—no one cares how good you are at math. In math class, math skills are everything—no one cares how good you are at soccer. While you’re working, work may seem like everything. When you go into a retirement home, it doesn’t matter at all. No one has jobs or titles or meetings. They have grandchildren. Periodically take yourself out of the arena that you find yourself in and then think hard about whether or not you want to go back in.
When you spend your life how you want to, when your time reflects your ideal pie chart, you will be happy. When you spend your time in a way that doesn’t mirror your ideal pie chart, you will be unhappy. Draw up a pie chart so that you know what your idea of happiness looks like. Then you’ll know how to aim to spend your time. Count the hours you have during the day and decide how you’d like to spend them. Then track how you actually spend your time naturally for one week and see if it lines up with your priorities. You’ll probably notice some discrepancies. You might notice that you spend a significant amount of time washing the dishes and decide to buy a dishwasher. You might realize that you want to find a new job that doesn’t have such a long commute. You might decide that you’re spending too much time watching TV and not enough time exercising. You’ll very likely be surprised at what you find.
Someone once asked my friend what the most important things in his life were. He said, “Family and career, and in that order.” Then his friend asked him how much time he spend trying to advance in his career and how much time he spent looking for a wife. My friend realized then that he was spending a lot of time on furthering his career and virtually no time trying to find a wife. The way he spent his time did not reflect his priorities, and so he made a big adjustment. He started spending a lot more time and energy look for a life partner. Now he is happily married and has a kid. It’s worth the time that it takes to examine how you spend your time and make any necessary adjustments.
This pie chart plan is something that you have to design and then constantly protect, just like you have to protect a garden from weeds. Your workplace might ask you to spend less time with your family. Your family might ask you not to exercise. Your marathon training program might require you to spend less time in the office. You have to learn how to say no in order to protect the life that you want. It’s not easy taking Henry David Thoreau’s advice. It takes practice to “Live the life you’ve imagined.” But it’s worth it. This life you have is no one’s but yours. Take a stand. Live the life you’ve imagined.
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