The Pangs of Procrastination - Wasted Time Can Waste a Life

“It is either you are converting time into a product or into a value chain or you are killing, wasting and throwing away your life.” - Sunday Adelaja

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” - Pablo Picasso

“You may delay, but time will not.” - Benjamin Franklin

For what can be worse than to neglect the gifts that you have been so graciously given? To waste the precious time that could have been used to create, to heal, to build and to give? Why is it that procrastination seems to have become the norm within our nonchalant and rudimentary way of being? When time can never be replaced, why do we throw it away meaninglessly? When tomorrow is never certain, how can we be so content with leaving so much opportunity and value on the table?

Believing that we have all the time in the world and not taking the initiative to capitalize on the passing moment appears to be a modern and local corroboration. Comfort and lack of will have lead us far away from generations of the past who waited on assembly lines all night long just for a chance at a day’s pay in the factories or on the docks. In lesser world countries it seems regular for masses of people to burn down every morsel of time within a day in order to provide a life for themselves and for their families. I imagine millions of them in their hours of tiresome, arduous despair, yearning, wishing and dreaming for a chance to chase their dreams, to labor on passion or to spend some time doing something meaningful.

It seems that as the time goes on, it is the obvious that casually fades away into the mist as we unassumingly choose the dollar over a few extra minutes with a loved one. We forget that we are needed, that we CAN help and we are blinded by the material and the superficial. ARE WE MAKING THE BEST OF EACH AND EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY? Time waits for nobody! In a busy and confusing world one must move forward with priorities, hindering least on that which cannot be taken with us when we die!

Do we reflect on what we spend our quality time doing? On what stands atop our list of priorities? Is it specific and needed service to our families and to others or is it catering to our comforts and immediate desires? How much time is left over after our priorities are fulfilled to spend on our own personal development, on self-reflection or on taking a chance at bettering ourselves and those around us? Before we act, does it not seem necessary to ponder for a moment on whether or not this time can be spent on something more meaningful or important? ARE WE WASTING OUR LIVES?

We complain about not being appreciated, of being passed over and of not being granted the due of which we are worth, yet no words need be spoken to achieve the value of which we are seeking. It is effort and giving of self that speaks louder than all mutter and cry! The truth in Mathew 5:41 is real, proclaiming “whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two”. Do you quietly and laborsomely go the extra mile for a boss, for a loved one or for a stranger? Perhaps this is the reason in which you feel that you are lacking? Could this be why you haven’t been promoted?

Giving more of yourself and putting others first is so overlooked yet it is the universal ticket to obtaining value. Time and time again we must ask ourselves if we are using our time in the most meaningful fashion or if we are wasting it on that which remains less significant! When one takes for themselves before others, he or she loses respect as a leader and as an honorable figure. Yet to the authentic man it becomes clear that humility and will are precursors to productive action.

First, one has to amount the desire to become better, to love and to do more. Through humility, one puts others before themselves and trades waste less time to help those in need. It is the humble that know and understand that there is always work that needs to be done within and upon themselves. Paired with ambition, this humility can channel one to begin working on themselves and to service others in their free time. It can spur one on to read, to listen, to learn and to research! Can you see through a humble lens and start using your time in productive action? Or are you too self-centered, stubborn or lazy to start making a difference?

The great tragedy of our day is the man or women who knows that they need to make a change but they never do. They know they aren’t working where they were meant to work but they push off a resignation out of fear, self-delusion or laziness. They never take the time to work on their passion in their free time or to seek out a job that allows them to express their true calling. THE TIME OF WAITING IS FINISHED! WE NEED TO START ACTING!

One knows in their heart that they must stop drinking or using drugs, that they must stop lying to themselves or that they ought to make things right with those that they have done wrong by but they choose to push it off until tomorrow. WHAT IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES? Have you not realized vividly, that you are more then what you are right now?

I have heard it said that heaven and hell both begin here and this statement becomes clarified when we picture the under performer on his or her deathbed, looking up at the ceiling and out the window. Wondering what the hell they did with all of their time. Wishing that they could go back and take a chance at what they really wanted. And then their heart speaks to them and says that they have chosen not to make right by others! They decided not to make the extra effort! They have chosen to run away from truth and honesty and for that they must sit here and face facts hopelessly, for an eternity!

I am a believer that procrastination and the wasting of valued time diminishes one’s self esteem! How can one look themselves in the mirror each night and honestly admit that they gave this day their best shot when they know in their hearts that they didn’t? How can the individual feel content with leaving fate to nature when they know they could have done more, when they know that they could have done better?

Giving of ourselves completely to a task of meaning leaves no shame, yet in that day and in that moment when we did the absolute best we could with what we had, we encountered genuine success. It was then that we were at one with the words of the great Vice Lombardi when he uttered “that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.”