Character & Mental Toughness – Time

“Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it.” – Jim Rohn

 

 

 

 

Maybe it’s because I have survived cancer and feel the clock ticking with uncertainty. Maybe it’s because I am impatient. Maybe it’s because I am wicked competitive. Maybe it’s a habit from all these years of coaching. I don’t really know. What I do know is that I am obsessed with getting myself and others better. Sometimes in profound ways. Sometimes a fraction at a time. I have an overwhelming sense of urgency about this. It has become, more than anything, what I do. It has become me.

As such, I feel like my time is precious. I feel like every spare minute presents an opportunity to get myself and others better. It’s as if I were in a race with an undetermined finish line. At some unknown moment the horn will blow and that will be it. The victory decided by how far I have traveled and helped others travel in the time that’s been allotted. How far we go is determined by how efficiently we use our time and how much meaning we inject into each moment.

I know this annoys the hell out of people. I don’t claim to know if I’m right. Maybe they are right and I should be more frivolous. Maybe they are wrong and just resent me because they see me and realize the time they waste. I don’t know who is right. But in the end I will have made as much of a difference as I could. When the final buzzer sounds I will have traveled some distance and though I will no longer be able to get better my echoes, however loud or feint, will endure.

I have invented little. I have invested much. My trophies are people. My dividends are lives lived a little more deeply. Is that so bad?