Living a Life That Matters

Time.

We have all been give a specific allotment of time. There are no guarantees in life that you will get any more than you were already promised and nothing you can do will get you back the time you have already spent. Time, therefore, should be the most precious thing we have. Once it's gone, it's gone. There is no getting it back. It's like giving someone a dollar. They can spend it on anything they like, but once it's spent they can get it back, exchange it or get more. That's all we are gifted with. So why do we waste time?

It's been something that has been on my mind lately. Why? I have no clue. Maybe I am nearing the end of mine or maybe during the end of the year like most of us, I found myself reflecting on the 48 years I have had so far. Tomorrow is never guaranteed and all I know is that each second I can draw a breath, I am still alive and I still have purpose. I believe once I fulfill what God has destined me for, my time here will end.

Sorry, didn't mean to make you depressed just reading my thoughts but I've been reading a lot of books lately dealing with how people chose to spend their time. There are those people simply wishing they had more time in the day or when reflecting on the end of their life, take an account and simply wish they had time to change things, to go back and make a difference. So again the question perplexes my deepest thoughts, why do we waste it?

I personally think is because we think we will wake up tomorrow and we can always begin again then. The procrastinator rises his ugly head. Yet when people are given a known deadline, why do their days change? Why do they do things differently than we do? Is it because they know when life may end and we don't? Should that make a difference in how we view what we will do?

Most people spend their time, pursuing a better life for themselves and their family. In doing so, they may work farther from home, spend more hours at the office, and even sacrifice time away from their family and friends just to have more. Is there a finish line in sight? When is enough truly enough? When people are debt free? The bills are easier to manage? You have the dream house? Dream car? Able to afford a dream vacation?

But in the end, isn't there a cost being calculated you don't see. The precious cost of time. We spend so much time in a job we literally hate, making no difference in the job to make things better for the people we work with or that benefits our communities. It's almost a dismal way of looking at things. Yet how many of us have goals to accomplish and I'm not taking a "To Do List" of items that need to be done and checked off, but simply things that if you were to die in the next 24 hours you would stop doing or start doing?

Why are we waiting to do them?

I posed the question to my family and asked what they wanted to accomplish at the end of 2013, not that we know if any of us will make it that far, but I think goals are important. They provide direction and help us achieve what we want to set out to do. I know my husband and I talked about serving others more than ourselves this year and we need to put plans in place that follow that mindset. We talked about making more time for family and less about stuff and work. Do you have any goals for 2013 you want to see accomplished?

Do you have time in your schedule for fun anymore or are you simply too busy?

See I think we are missing the bigger picture, what we do with our time will be the one question, God will ask all of us. What did you do with the time I gave you? Did you make the world a better place because you were in it, or were you simply too busy trying to get ahead? Fun stuff to consider right?

I ask you to take a few moments and really think about what time means to you. How much do you value it? What will you do with the time you have left? Considering how valuable it truly is, you might question how you spend it or who you spend it with. For me, I truly thank those who give their time to me. It's like money spent, once its given, it can't be taken back and I need to value that more than I ever did before. Tomorrow isn't guaranteed and God will be waiting for all of us wanting to know what we did with the time He gave all of us. Don't let it be a life looked back on when you are dying with regret, let it instead be something you reflect on with a smile and many, many fond memories and the legacy that you will leave long after you have breathed your last in the lives of the people you touched. Let it be a better place because YOU were in it!

Break Out the Red Pen!

When I was a corporate trainer for one of the top communications companies, after we had completed our 6 to 7 week New Hire training class, we had a graduation day. It was something I felt was owed to these hard working individuals who had made it through training for customer service representatives. They had to endure long hours and no time off for illness or any reason. If they did, we had to let them go due to the intense and compacted training they needed to do the job.

So we usually had a class of about 40 people and we’re lucky to have 15 left by the close of our 6-week class. So on graduation day, I would give them a chance to provide feedback on my training, being as honest as they felt, and no names needed to be provided. I wanted the brutal honesty. If I was a bad trainer, I wanted to know it but also what they felt I did wrong and suggestions on how to improve my training.

It was something I looked forward to the most. Most of what I got was great, but occasionally I did get the brutal honest feedback, and I feel it made me a better person. I wasn’t out to get the person who gave it to me, but I felt, others could sometimes see things you are often to close to see. That’s where I believe we can all use some brutal honesty.

However, I think we have to be in the mood to hear it. Sometimes others want to offer their dose of brutal honesty to us, but we aren’t ready to hear it. I think a warning is in order. You have to mentally be prepared to deal with their honesty. You have to see it also for what it is, honest feedback based on their perceived opinion of you at that moment. A hard pill to swallow for some of us. We don’t want to hear any negative. All we look for is praise and compliments.

It’s like the red pen circling our errors we have made in life. Remember when you received your paper back from your teacher in school, only to find it riddled with red pen, marks of correction? How did you handle it? If you were like me, a perfectionist in every sense of the word, I hated it. I didn’t see it until my high school years, that it was a way to improve. A way to better yourself. A way to be a better person to those around you.

In high school, I looked forward to the red pen marks. I was always looking for how to be a better person, and the people, who could provide that kind of feedback for me, were the experts in their field, my teachers. Who better to provide feedback and correction on my English paper than my English teacher? My parents could offer some suggestions but unless they had an English degree, I had to wait for the red pen! I knew I was getting better when the red pen marks became so few, that they didn’t appear any longer.

I didn’t know it then but I do now, how those red pen marks made me a better student. It’s all about not so much pointing out the negative things, but on how to improve on the positive things. That is where God spends so much loving time with us.

Many times we are faced with similar situations in life. Times where I believe, God breaks out the red pen in our lives. Sometimes we are so stubborn, we choose to look at a difficult situation God has placed in our life, and all we choose to see is the red pen, all over our paper. We don’t want to go back and fix it, we don’t want to hear what is wrong, we simply want to see a great grade on top and move on to something else.

When we take that attitude of refusing to fix things that God wants us to fix, He may allow the situation to pass, but brings it back to us in a different form.

Many times as a teacher for my daughter, when she gets frustrated learning something new, and wants to quit rather than see the lesson before her, I try again. Many times, I have to see that my attitude or method of teaching her that new concept isn’t getting through to her. I have to change my approach so she learns without me losing my patience with her, or having her end up in tears. I have to try a different way of teaching her that concept. My methods weren’t able to reach her in the manner I needed it to, so she was missing the point. The goal is to get her to learn something new. Something, that will make her a better student and move up a level.

God is the same; He presents situations to us, many times in different manners so we can learn what He needs us to before we can move up another level. We may get frustrated and cry. We may run from our situation, but God keeps lovingly bringing it back to us, until we see that situation or red pen for what it is. A lesson to be learned. A way to make us into the wonderful person God sees. It is His goal for us. We are on that path to becoming better people! We simply must change our hearts, and our attitudes, and be willing to see the red pen marks for what they are in our life.

God, please continue to use the red pen, until I achieve all you want me to be in Your life!