Friday (Christmas) E-Book Download: What Matters Now

When Seth Godin released his viral e-book last week, “What Matters Now,” he invited people to spread the word about the e-book and post their own inspirational riffs.

The e-book download (3 MB file) is registration-free. Read it, get inspired by it, and pass it on.

Herewith, my riff.

Time

Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side. ~The Talmud

“I don’t have the time.”

That’s the phrase that has run through my head for years. A destructive thought pattern, it’s kept me from starting projects, finishing projects, writing a book, taking big leaps of faith, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, taking really long walks with the dogs, stopping work when I’m exhausted, and just about anything else you can imagine.

It’s easy to blame technology for our lack of time. Smart phones keep us connected all day and all night. TVs blare their incessant noise in airports, restaurants, and the gym — clamoring for our attention. Computers, which were supposed to save us time, require even more time to get work done.

We sit in traffic fuming yet life rushes by at a hundred miles an hour. Just yesterday it was January 1, now it’s December 25. Where did the time go? What did you accomplish this year? No time to think about it — it’s time to plan out 2010.

We plan our time, organize our time, and try to manipulate time . . . but no matter what we do or how far we advance technologically, we still have a finite amount of time.

60 seconds in a minute.
60 minutes in an hour.
24 hours in a day.
168 hours in a week.
8760 hours in a year.
86+ years in a lifetime (if we’re fortunate).

When God made time, He made enough of it. ~ Celtic Saying

For me, how I allocate my time has come down to learning how to say “no” — no to projects I don’t want, no to time vampires who want to suck the life out of me, no to old rules, and no to other people’s agendas.

Saying “no” means I can say “yes” to what is important:

Being the kind of mom who cooks dinner every night, makes French toast every Sunday morning, and has time to listen to my son when he talks.

Reading, reading, reading.

Working out at the gym five days a week.

Getting eight hours of sleep every night.

Breaking the ingrained rule that says that to be successful, you must work more hours.

Having deep relationships with my clients.

Developing the courage and discipline to follow through on the “big” ideas that come to me in the quiet nothingness of time.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. ~ Will Rogers

How will you spend your time this year? What’s important to you? How will you make your time count — not in the big important save-the-world sense, but in the little minutes of time where grace happens?

Will you be so full of yourself that you can’t hear your own voice?

My challenge for you: turn off the phone, the TV, the laptop. Don’t worry about being “behind.” Create spaces of quiet nothingness where you can hear your heart.

What is your heart saying — and how will you honor it?