How do you usually spend your day?
You wake up on a weekday, annoyed at the alarm clock for reminding you once again to go to work. Phone in hand, you take a quick glance at social media to get the freshest news. After a quick breakfast, you prepare your things and head to work. To maximize your time commuting, you listen to your favorite podcast while in your car.
If there is one recognizable aphorism on how we should live our days to the fullest, it would be carpe diem. This is famously known to mean “seize the day”, but it is actually mistranslated. Its true meaning is closer to “gather while the day is ripe”.
This year has been hard for many of us. The pandemic brought widespread disruption in people’s lives by losing loved ones, layoffs, closed businesses, and isolation. Our family was not spared as well. This year I lost my sister to cancer. Several uncles and relatives passed away. This led me to think about the shortness of this life. Was gathering while the day is ripe enough? How can I even know if the day is ripe or not?
Goals come in all shapes and sizes. Life goals, year-end goals, New Year’s resolutions, Quarterly targets, and so on. A common approach to goal setting is:
This simple flowchart illustrates this:
“I wanted to do that but I didn’t have time!“. Have you heard yourself say this before? I am certain everyone did at some point. We all wish we have the time to do the things we want. 24 hours is not enough for a day!
But think about other people whom you admire. Perhaps its someone who leads a successful business, or someone who produces amazing works of art. These are people who spent a lot of time practicing and honing their skills. How did they find time to do these things? Why am I not as skilled as them even though all of us had the same number of hours in a day?
You just received a message from a friend asking for a favor. This has already happened more times than you wanted. You feel anxious and uncomfortable but you just can’t refuse. You’re not the kind of person who disappoints and lets other people down, are you? Defeated, you give in to your friend’s request. You have failed again to speak your truth.
“You are always playing it safe. It’s ok to be honest on your feedback!“, a colleague said to me one day. I was a bit jarred. Is there anything wrong with that? “I like to keep everything in harmony as much as possible“, I thought to myself.