You don’t need more time because you already have all the time that you will ever get;
you need more focus.
Kevin Kelly wrote a book called Excellent Advice for Living, full of advice he’d gleaned from others or in the course of his own learnings and compiled them together for his family. What I love about this quote from him is that we often fall prey to thinking it’s time (which is out of our hands) that is getting in the way of fulfilling our hopes and dreams, but really it’s what we decide to focus on (which is totally within our control) that determines our course.
This time of year can be fraught with an explosion of invitations, activities, obligations, and best-laid-plans. In fact, many people find themselves extra stressed around the holidays – a time when we expect to be so happy and joyful – with what they experience as an overwhelm of requirements and expectations and a fleeting sense of time.
But I think what we can take from Mr. Kelly, as we ease (or plow headfirst) into the holidays, is this: we only have the time we have, and we all have access to the same amount of it in any given day, so the part of our experience that we can impact lies within our choice of how to use that time.
What do you really really REALLY want to say yes to? Where do you want to focus?
And what do you need to say no to that will make that yes happen?
There’s nothing more leisurely than an afternoon game of Petanque among French men…