Precious Little…

…Time. 

Everybody wants money.  If you don’t think so, ask yourself if you would go to work if you didn’t get paid.  Me either.  Can you make too much money?  I don’t think it is something I will have to deal with so that’s a moot point.  Can you be satisfied with your pay?  Probably, but for me it comes down to the simple fact of paying the bills in an area with a cost of living that is far too high and a mortgage so far underwater that I need scuba gear (my only poor timing in real estate so far… and a bad one).

But money isn’t everything.  I left a damn good job at with a very good company at the peak of my career during the 90’s to follow a dream.  It was absolutely 110% worth it and I would not trade the experience for anything – no regrets.  Unfortunately, life’s little twists and turns resulted in a sharp left turn in the Master Plan of life to the road of Simply Making It.  It is better than that dirt road of Not Making it… but I digress.

What is it that I really wanted during my early, lucrative career, my rewarding self employment, and my current “they call it a non-profit for a reason” work history?  Time.

I see my work calendar as the space between time off.  I am fortunate in that I work in a place with a generous time off policy, so there is ample opportunity to take vacations or an extended weekend like I am taking right now.  The problem is how I spend that time.  It seems that I have mastered the art of doing nothing.  I could say that health issues force me to take it slower than I used to, but that is not the heart of the matter (no pun intended).  We live in a country where we are encouraged to (tragically, literally) work ourselves to death.  While I am not a death’s door, I am not exactly a kid anymore.  Every week, this takes its toll and I spend so much time just decompressing that I usually accomplish very little every weekend. 

Here I am at day 2 of a four day weekend.  Yesterday I played with my tech toys, read, listened to music, read, sent emails, sent texts, listened to music, played with tech toys… etc.  None of this is bad, but I have so much that needs to be done and right now, I have the time to do it.  There is that damned Puritanical Work Ethic again (Damn those bloody Puritans!).  It even seeps into our personal lives – not that I am doing anything about it other than feeling guilty.

Precious time.  Part of me feels that I should treat it like the precious commodity that it is.  Part of me thinks that maybe, I am.