A 300-Year Lifetime

by Gregory Allen Butler

If I could show you a way to have a 300-year lifetime, would you be interested? It's important for you to know why you are interested. Do you have dreams and ambitions? If so, great. You can make the most out of 300 years. You see life as an opportunity. However, some people would jump at the chance to live 300 years just because they are afraid of deathy. They only want to postpone the inevitable.

I can't help you in postponing the inevitable, but if you have dreams and ambitions, you can increase the effectiveness of your time management, perhaps increase it by a factor of more than four. And that, as far as accomplishing your goals, is the same as having a 300-year lifetime.

Time is life. When a moment passes by it is gone forever. If we waste our time, we waste our life.

Ask yourself this: "What is my big goal in life at this time?"

How are you going to attain your goal? Do you have a plan? If you want to reach this goal in two years, what do you need to accomplish in the next year? What do you need to accomplish each month? Each week? Each day?

If you can see what you need to accomplish each day, are you doing it? If not, identify what the problem is. All it takes is attention to how you are utilizing your time. You can make a game out of it to make it more enjoyable.

In my life I am adding to this website and blog everyday. To reach my two-year goal of having 600 articles I need to write approximately six articles a week. Why 600 articles? The more content I have, the more traffic I have. And the more traffic I have, the more opportunities I have to make a difference in people's lives, and that leads to more revenue possibilities, which will allow me to continue this. All that feels great to me.

Everyday when I sit down to write, I am in touch with that feeling. Each day of reaching my goal gives me confidence that I will meet it the next day. That builds enthusiasm with translates into energy and focus. My heart is engaged in my efforts, as is my mind, body, and spirit.

The synergy of that holistic approach makes my work easier and more enjoyable. There is no procrastination. I start everyday grateful for the opportunity to do this. I conclude each day grateful for having had the day to do my writing and get it done.

The reason there is no procrastination in my work is that are no inner conflicts in what I am doing. As Joseph Campbell would say, I am following my bliss. That is the key for me.

When I was growing up, if my parents told me that I had to spend at least four hours a day outside playing football, basketball, or baseball, it would not have been a problem. I loved playing sports. But if they told me I had to spend four hours a day studying algebra, I would not be able to find the time to do it. Too many distractions would get in the way-and too much procrastination.

The reasons distractions would be an issue is that I would be looking for distractions. If my sister asked me to shine her shoes in the middle of my four hours of algebra, I would surely say yes--anything to relieve the monotony of the algebra. Even mowing the lawn or doing dishes would be welcome relief.

That's how it is in life dealing with time management. If we are not engaged in something wholeheartedly, we allow things to come up and distract us. Therefore, if you want to be free of distractions, then make yourself free. As they said in the 1960s, "tune in, turn on, and drop out."

What I mean by that is perhaps a little different from its original intention. By tune in, I mean go within yourself and find out what is really important to you. Ask questions. What is meaningful? What would it mean to follow your bliss?

By turn on, I mean to do what gives you meaning, and do it with passion, intensity. Do it with your whole being.

And by drop out, I mean give yourself space and time to do what you need to do. If you need quietude, then find quietude. If you need to drop out of some of your current responsibilities, then drop out. To be the best person you can be, you have to be responsible to yourself.

If you need to turn your phone ringer off, then turn it off. Don't answer your doorbell. If you find yourself constantly turning on the television, get rid of it. Find a quiet room, close the door, and put a sign on the outside of the door, "Do not disturb."

Make notes of what intrudes on the time you set aside for working towards your target goal. Then follow through and do something about it. The other day, I had to put ear-plugs in to keep from getting distracted from my wife Maggie's phone conversation in the other room. It took care of the problem.

Another thing that can get us off track are compulsive habits. These arise mostly when we are bored. If we are fully engaged in the task at hand, they are not issues at all.

Make a note of each time one of them gets you off track and you will see them disappear. They exist due to unconsciousness. Bring conscious awareness to them and they go away. If they don't go away, then it's your time (which is your life) that is going away, wasted, never to return.

As I mentioned earlier, time is life. Once it is gone, it's gone.

When we have a meaningful goal that we are striving for, then we are more likely to put an emphasis on time. But what about the periods of life when we are just drifting without any targets to hit?

Perhaps we have a full-time job that puts food on the table and pays the mortgage payment. Does time stop mattering? Are you so worn out that you have no energy for anything except television and beer?

Does having a full-time job fulfill the purpose of life? I think not. There are relationships, family, friends, love, consciousness, etc. But if these parts of life don't have a deadline, then the allotted time to them isn't prioritized and life slips away.

That's why there are so many people suffering from the proverbial mid-life crisis. They have lost purpose.

They could take a lesson from the refrain at the end of Sting's song, History Will Teach Us Nothing: "Sooner or later, be what you come here for." Until they are ready for that, they are just whiling away their time. It reminds me of a book I saw recently at my library by a prison convict titled, We're All Just Doing Time. That is true for many of us, but it doesn't have to be.