Time - Friend or Enemy?

I was looking at websites today and came across this great article on time. It was asking if time is your friend or your enemy. Most of us believe that time is our enemy since we never seem to have enough of it, and we're always trying to "find time", or "save" time. Some people think of time as passing them by or they say things like, "Life is too short to spend it working a job you hate", or "Life is too short to hold onto regret". We can't battle or beat time, we don't conquer it, we must use the time that we have wisely and efficiently.  

Our lives are often run by the calendar and the clock. We learn early on that there are consequences to not being "on time". If your homework was turned in late, your grade got lowered. If you don't pay your bills on time, you get charged a penalty. If you're late to work, you may lose your job. So when you look at time this way, no wonder you may think it is your enemy.  However, just because time, or the lack of it could be a valid reason to not make changes and transformations in your life, you just may be missing a good point here. If you were living your life with regret, wouldn't a shortness of time be a good thing? Less regret. What if you are working in a job that you hate? Wouldn't less time be a good thing here as well?

In actuality, the clock gets reset every night, the calendar at the end of the month, and lo and behold we get a whole new year at the end of the old one.

Instead of thinking:  

"Life is too short to _____________" 

Let's switch that thinking now to this:

"Life is too long to ________"

Perhaps it is because of the abundance of time that you have that might motivate you to make changes and look to transform parts of your life. If you look at things this way, you now have an unlimited amount of time and since you are going to be around for awhile, why not make the most of it?

If there's a problem in your life that needs fixing, imagine what your life would be like if you don't do anything about it. See yourself in a year with this problem still hanging around. What are the impacts it has had on you? Has it hurt your relationships? Your professional life? What has it cost you in terms of your health?

Now think of five years passing? What have you lost? Have you suffered? Has it forced those around you to make sacrifices?

Now we're at the ten year mark. Time has kept on marching and you still haven't resolved the problem. Have you lost all hope and faith that things will ever get better? How insurmountable does the problem feel now? Are you weaker in your resolve to do anything about it?

I'll stop there, but you can see where this is going. Twenty years, thirty, etc. When you consider the impact of not resolving issues can have on your life, why not put in the effort now to make the changes necessary.

Time isn't out to hurt you, it's giving you an opportunity. Some issues will be resolved in hours or days, some will take weeks or months, or even years. Time is there for you, take what you need. Time doesn't have an agenda, it allows you to do what you need to do. Some things will have deadlines, to be sure, but it's not restrictive in itself. It can offer you impetus to get things done. It's there for you to use.

Waiting for the "right" or "perfect" time is a fool's errand. You don't have to wait until everything is put into place to effect the changes you need to make. Time is your partner in getting the most out of your life. Time is on your side and it's waiting right there for you.