Adventurous Mom

In a pre­vi­ous post, I dis­cussed my fer­vent pas­sion about pro­tect­ing my time after I real­ized that our time here is so lim­ited.  And as we go into the New Year, I plan to fur­ther empha­size how impor­tant I really feel like this idea is.

I first wanted to share a life les­son that I encoun­tered early.  I know that most peo­ple have expe­ri­enced friends or fam­ily mem­bers that have passed away at some point in their life and I have too.  But one per­son that affected me greatly, was a per­son that I didn’t even know.

A Hard Les­son at 21

I was 21, and it was Thanksgiving-eve.  It was another shift on my para­medic intern­ship, and I was respond­ing to a call for a “man down”.  We got these calls occa­sion­ally, and usu­ally it was a tran­sient passed out on the cor­ner.  This call was about 11:30 in the evening and it was rain­ing and cold out­side.  The call was for a man down in the street.  We drove around in cir­cles for close to 15 min­utes at the loca­tion of the described area.  We couldn’t find him.  Then we saw a bystander wav­ing us down.

In the mid­dle of the street there was a young man, face down, he appeared have been skate­board­ing and fell.  He didn’t appear injured except that he was not respond­ing and his breath­ing was very irreg­u­lar, he also was lay­ing in a pool of vomit.  We had to put a breath­ing tube into this throat to help him breathe bet­ter, bystanders said he had a dog with him and was walk­ing his dog.

We did what we could med­ically to help him and trans­ported him to the near­est trauma room.  He died later of a mas­sive brain injury.  He was 25.  My fiance (soon to be hus­band) at the time was 25 too…they looked the same. That really both­ered me.  I don’t even remem­ber the man’s name.

You don’t expect at first to be asked to try save some­one your age when you are that young (and fail).  For me, still in my early for­ma­tive years, it was a hard and fast les­son:  LIFE IS SHORT.

Up to then, I had only seen old faces pass away. Since then, I have seen faces of all ages leave.

What are you doing with your time?

So when I approach peo­ple and talk about time, I do it in a very delib­er­ate way.  I ask, “What is your most cher­ished memory?”

Most peo­ple do not respond with “Get­ting a pay­check every other week.”  It usu­ally has to do with how they shared an expe­ri­ence with some­one, learned a new skill, received an award, etc…  I am not dis­count­ing the impor­tance of mak­ing money, because I think it is an impor­tant tool for an enriched life.

Sim­ple Truths I’ve Learned about Money and Time

Can Money make you Happy?

While some may think I am com­pletely insane about this, there has been research that shows once basic human needs are met (food, shel­ter, cloth­ing etc…) which equates to about $40,000 (okay maybe $50,000 in Cal­i­for­nia) the addi­tional income does NOT sig­nif­i­cantly increase one’s hap­pi­ness levels.

More money does not equate to more happiness.

Trust me, I’ve known many peo­ple with a lot of money that are more mis­er­able now than before. (Added stress, added pos­ses­sions, added risk etc)

Can Money buy Time?

Can Money Buy Time?

While you can argue that money can allow one to work more effi­ciently, hire help to do tasks that one doesn’t have time to do, money, in it’s purest form is really just a mech­a­nism for trade.

It is no dif­fer­ent than when the farm­ers used bales of grain to trade for a cow.  You can­not phys­i­cally buy time, it is not tangible.

You TRADE money for TIME.  This is what most employ­ees do, or if you are hir­ing help, this is what you are doing by hir­ing a house cleaner, per­sonal assis­tant etc…

But let me be very clear here, you can­not BUY TIME. You can­not “own” time and you cer­tainly can­not make more of it.  You can just enjoy each minute as it comes!

A New Goal This Year

So as I am sit­ting here, and reflect­ing on my past, I can­not change it, only appre­ci­ate the lessons that the past has taught me.  I can­not change the expe­ri­ences that time has already deliv­ered, I can­not pay to get that time back.  I can only be present in the NOW time.  (Oh, and that’s a free activ­ity by the way!)

The best way that I know how to honor my most valu­able asset is to be Present and Aware now.  For me this some­times means turn­ing my brain off, and sit­ting in the stress, the empti­ness, the anx­i­ety of the now.

Is it hard for you to “shut it off” like me?  Yes! I get  anx­ious like I should be doing some­thing. That some­thing is just stuff to fill up my time, it’s not my con­scious deci­sion about how I want to spend my time.

After some prac­tice, that anx­i­ety  passes, and soon your time will be spent in relax­ation, enjoy­ment, and happiness.

My sec­ond goal is to either be spend­ing my time in one of two states:

1. Relaxation/Enjoyment  or 2. Productivity.

The in-between states are just clut­ter that fill your life, add stress and don’t honor your time.  See my “To-Do” list for a short list of things that bring relax­ation and enjoyment!

Pro­duc­tiv­ity is impor­tant to an Entre­pre­neur.  I need an Area and Time where I can cre­ate and be pro­duc­tive. Often times one mis­takes pro­duc­tiv­ity for send­ing emails, doing bills, answer­ing oth­ers emer­gen­cies, Twit­ter­ing, Face-booking etc..

Pro­duc­tiv­ity is about the time that you set aside to cre­ate your goals, cre­ate your life… putting aside the trees for the for­est.  Pro­duc­tiv­ity requires unmatched focus, unin­ter­rupted time.

As a suc­cess­ful Entre­pre­neur and LifeStyle Designer, I am putting these mech­a­nisms in place to pro­tect my most valu­able asset.  I am secur­ing my cur­rency of time.  How are you hon­or­ing your time?  Happy New Year!

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