Take Time To Live

[Akaali]

Take time to live

Harvey Mackay

Benjamin Franklin said, "If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves." One minute. It doesn't seem like much. However, never underestimate the cumulative effect of each minute we live.

Suppose, for example, a minute is worth one penny. You spot a penny lying on the street but pass it by because it's hardly worth the effort of leaning over to pick it up. But suppose you began to double that penny each day for a month. At the end of a week, you would only have 64 pennies. That's not much maybe, but at the end of a month you would have 536,870,912 pennies. Translated into dollars, that's $5,368,709.12.

But it's not about the money. If we take that mathematical principle and apply it to the value of each minute of time available to us, the cumulative effect on our lives is self-evident. Time is an incredible gift. It's one we tend to think about a lot as we begin a new year. But do we really appreciate the value of this amazing asset?

You can save time, spend time, kill time, waste time, need time, bide time, lose time, even try to buy time. But the simple fact is that once time is past, you can't get it back.

Using time to your advantage gets easier the more you do it. Whether you spend it making your personal life better, building your business, helping someone, or just taking a little break to recharge your batteries, remember: You are the only one who can waste your time.

And since you are given a precise amount of time each day to accomplish all that you want to do, developing good time management skills becomes all the more important. I received some good advice a long time ago: Each day, make a list of the five most important things you want to accomplish. Once you have achieved them, the rest of your time can be devoted to whatever didn't make your list. Some days, there will not be enough time to finish everything. Other days, projects come easily and you have time to spare. That's okay; that can be catch-up time for the days when there isn't enough. Amazingly, it seems to even out. I have discovered that I usually have enough time to do what I really want to do. Having enough of the important things in life is, in itself, a blessing.

Bob Perks, a fellow member of the National Speakers Association, shares a story about an elderly father and his daughter whom he observed sharing their last moments together at the airport. Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the father said, "I love you and I wish you enough."

The daughter replied, "Dad, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Dad." They kissed and the daughter left. The father, on the verge of tears, asked Perks, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?"

"Yes, I have," Perks says. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?"

"I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is her next trip back will probably be for my funeral," he said.

"When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough.' May I ask what that means?"

"That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations, " he said. "My parents used to say it to everyone. When we said, 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them."

Then turning toward me, he shared the following, reciting it from memory:

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye."

Take time to live.

http://www.harveymackay.com