If time is opportunity, why are you spending it on things that don’t matter?

 
Occasionally you come across an article on a blog that makes you stop and re-think some of your basic assumptions. This is such an article, posted by Tom O’Leary on LifeGoalAction.

It reminds us that the flow of time is never-ending. The opportunities it allowed us in the past are over and gone, whether we used them or not. Future opportunities have yet to arrive. Many we expect never will, while unexpected chances may well take their place.

In neither case — past or future — can we seize those opportunities. Only the ones available to us today are open to be used.

As Tom writes:

We can drastically slash back the quantity of moments that we expect to perform in. No longer is there any need to perform in the past. Historic opportunity has closed as soon as the moment has passed. There is also no need or possibility of performance in any future opportunity. These opportunities don’t exist, and they may never exist as we expect them to. Our only cares need be for this very moment. All that is left is to use the opportunities in front of us now, in a way that puts us in the right place for the next wave of opportunities that are slowly rolling out.

 
A great deal of needless stress comes from misunderstanding the nature of time: guilt for past mistakes (over and done) and anxiety about the future (may never happen). As a result, too many people pay little or no attention to the only time that they can do anything about: the present. They’re so busy going over and over the past, or obsessively planning for the future, that they have no time left to act today.

No amount of planning can guarantee a specific future outcome. No amount of guilt and remorse can change the past. Let them go and focus on the present instead. At least action there is still possible.

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