WAITING ON THE FUTURE TO BE HAPPY

WAITING ON THE FUTURE TO BE HAPPY
By: Mike Dailey
“How much of human life is lost in waiting.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life’s currency is measured and spent in time. Time, not money, is life’s true currency. If at the beginning of every day you were handed 1,440 dollar bills and told you could spend them all on anything you wanted, except at midnight they'd become non-negotiable and worthless, you would be careful what you spent the money on, and you’d be sure to spend it all by midnight. That’s how many minutes (1,440) we have to spend in a 24 hour day.Unfortunately, we spend a great deal of that time just waiting.

Throughout life we're taught to wait, because life is about waiting—waiting on something better to happen in our lives that will bring some measure of HAPPINESS. And while we’re waiting, we’re told to stay positive and look forward to “the future”, no matter what it may bring. However, it got me to thinking...after all this waiting just how much time do we have left to spend in our life span bank account?
We spend about six months of our lives just waiting in line for things: such as supermarkets, Wall-Mart, movies, fast-food restaurants etc. The average person spends about 43 days on hold with some automated customer service in one lifetime. On average we wait 21 minutes for someone we’re going somewhere with to get ready. Then we spend about six months of our lives waiting at traffic lights, not to mention traffic jams. It’s been estimated that by the time we reach 75 we’ve spent over 26 years just “waiting: (And that doesn't include waiting for Friday, the weekend, pay-day, or that pizza delivery.)

When you consider one sleeps for one-third of one's life, and if you live, say, to 75 years, that's 25 years asleep, or 9,125 days. Assuming the average age is 75, and you deduct waiting and sleeping, that gives you at best 25 years to genuinely live a life based on what’s important to you. The sad thing is we spend the first half of our lives planning for the future so we can find employment, then the second half reliving the past and abandoned dreams. This could easily drain another 10 years.

So let’s see, assuming the average age is 75, minus – 26 – 25 – 10 that leaves about 14 years of opportunity to actually embrace life doing something meaningful that brings you fulfillment. You’ve always heard that time is money. Well, it isn’t; it’s everything! Remember: Time is a currency we use every single moment we are alive. Therefore, spend it on who and what you love and HAPPINESS will surely follow. Considering all this, what are you “waiting” for? And where’s that pizza delivery I'm waiting on?