Time

Item 1: Today we had a phone interview for a position within our department. The interview was scheduled for a half hour; we were 10 minutes late in calling, and by the time the interview was over we it was 30 minutes past the original half hour. The result, after running late from work and sitting in traffic for two hours, was that we decided he was probably was not a keeper.

Item 2: Last night I managed to get everything done on my list. In order to do this, I ended up staying up 45 minutes past the time I need to be in bed, and continued not getting better and being run down - but I got everything I wanted to get done done.

The question is time, or not enough of it. Time, it has been said (and if not, it now is, by me) is the currency of life: it is ours to spend or waste, but it can only be spent once. It is in a limited supply, but we never know how much is in our account. It can be saved, but it cannot be stockpiled to use at a later date. It has a sense of speed or"dropping slowness" which is only partially controlled by us.

One of my realizations in the last 3 years has been how truly little time we have. All the things that I would like to do, that interest me, are wedged between the things that I need to do and accomplish. Yet what I am finding is that my time continues to become squeezed, and I can either start to crush my physical health and mental well being by being constantly sick and tired, or I can continue to pare away to get at the things that are very important.

Some people say manage your time; some people say don't manage it but invest it. Either way, what we are really doing is making choices of how to use our time in the best sense possible for the greatest benefit possible.

This is one reason I probably don't watch scads of TV, whether shows or sports: I can't stand the though of spending 2-3 hours in front of the TV doing nothing, when there is so much I feel that I need to accomplish.

So this weekend, I'll get out the planner, look at what I've done, and make the hard decision of what else won't get done this year, so that the more important things can.

It wrenches my heart to give something up - but it wrenches me more to live the time I have always exhausted, never doing any few things well but many things poorly.