Where Do You Invest Your Time?

As you may know if you’ve read my blog before, I have a love-hate relationship with Time. Well, it’s more of an epic struggle. I wrestle with time the way Jacob wrestled with the angel at the side of the road. I’m kind of outmatched.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about time and the way I use the time I’ve been given. It occurred to me that the activities where you invest your time are the activities where you see returns in your life.

Think of time as Monopoly money. We’re all given a bankroll when we begin playing the game of our lives – a certain amount of time allocated to us for our own use. We get to invest that time in whatever we want. We’re using our time to purchase things, and where we spend it determines what we’ll get.

There are some things we have to do – like clean the house. We can invest a minimal amount of time in cleaning and organizing the house. A minimal amount of time investment produces a house that looks like mine. Or you can invest a lot of your time cleaning and organizing the house. Then you may end up with a closet fit to host the Queen of England should she come pay a visit. And that’s absolutely fine as long as you find the payment you receive (a clean house, a spectacular closet) to be worth what you invest to get them (your time).

But I think you have to be careful. If your goal is to be a writer, then you have to invest your time – your QUALITY time – writing. If you invest it in Twitter or Facebook, chances are you will be paid with many followers, more than a little drama – and no book. If your goal is to be a painter, then you’d better invest your quality time painting. If you invest it in other things, you’ll be rewarded – but you won’t be rewarded with a painting. Ditto with any other pursuit worth pursuing. You have to invest your time heading in the direction you want to go. If you invest it elsewhere, you’ll end up in a different place.

Well, that’s the way it works in my life anyway.

So, where did you invest your time today?

 

Comments

  1. I invested my time the same place it’s been going for the last 3 weeks! And man is my arm sore from scrubbing. 😉

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