When I began speaking for a living 35 years ago, preparing for a talk required several books opened on my desk and a trip or two to the library to look up material related to my topic. Today, I can sit at my desk with a laptop and have all the information I could possibly need at my fingertips. The amount of time saved is immense.
Think of areas in your life where you can do a task now in a fraction of the time you used to do it. Secretaries, remember how long it took to create a perfect document with no mistakes when you were using just a typewriter? Bookkeepers, remember life before Quickbooks? Everything took longer. It even required a lot more time to stay connected with your friends and colleagues before the advent of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. We have saved ourselves enormous amounts of time with all of our new technologies. But what are we using the extra time for?
- Are we sitting mindlessly staring at Facebook for hours on end each day?
- Are we binge watching Netflix until the wee hours of the morning?
- Are we following the dysfunctional 24 hour news cycle so we can be totally ‘up to date’ on what is happening in our world?
- Are we keeping up with the lives of the Kardashians or the Bachelors or the Real House Wives of wherever? Please tell me it ain’t so. 🙁
We live in an amazing time. We have life hacks available to us our predecessors could not have imagined. We can do more now than ever before. Don’t blow it. Don’t spend your extra time doing small minded things. Get outside. Hike. Read a good book. Work out at the gym. Make a cake for someone who needs some cheering up. Cut an elderly person’s yard. Volunteer for a good cause. Travel. Learn to cook something different, maybe even ethnic. Plant a garden. Learn a new skill. Take up a hobby. Go fly fishing. Etc…..
You get the idea. We have been given a great gift to live in the time we live in. Make the most of it. Live big. Don’t settle for simply watching others lives on television. You can make your life something wonderful. You can do it. We all can.
Living the Big Life,
Ray
