Evolving over Quaran-Time

Buddha said, "The trouble is you think you have time."

I must have seen this line in a number of magazine articles, post cards and in captions written in people's Facebook feeds. I remember hearing it from my dad a lot of times and from few of my friends. However, I never really listened to them or listened to myself reading it until the day I actually found myself staring at a flex card hung on a wall in my college that had a Buddha picture to the left and to the right, the same quote written in bold. I would have unheard myself that day either, but my inner-self had already realized that I had been wasting my time when I actually didn't have any left. Well, I don't mean it relative to the days of my life, but I had a project submission due in just a few days and I literally had a huge portion of it to work on. And I was not the only one, there were friends working their tail off to catch the train, and there were friends who had surrendered without even trying. I was stressed, frustrated and motivated at the same time. If only I had listened when I heard it or read it for the first time. That was a portion of a story of an "ignorant" myself. And I know this is the story of I don't know the percentage, but a large number of youths today.

Trade-offs:

Not all uses of time value equally. Time can be exchanged with values of different kinds based on how we invest it. Investing time doing profitable work gets you to earn more money; whereas investing time with people gets you to build stronger relationships. People investing time for passion get freedom, those investing for social deeds build society. Everything you do leads to a consequence, you decide what you want: more money, better relationships, freedom or better society, and then you invest your time accordingly. Another fact is we want everything listed above at once, but we can't and it is needed to manage the trade-offs between these.

Time vs Money:

We spend time for money and we spend money for time. Few months ago, I was scrolling down my Facebook feed when I came across a beautiful post that said, "Some days I spend 20 rupees on bus to save 20 minutes of my day and some days I spend 20 minutes walking to save 20 rupees of my money”. There are situations when we have to choose between time and money. What we choose is circumstantial. For instance, should I wait for 2 hours and get a 50% discount on my flight tickets or get the tickets right away and save 2 hours of my day? Should I work on a project with a client that pays me 50 thousand within this week or should I work on establishing a start-up that will gain me 10 lakhs in 3 years? We encounter such type of situations every day. And we choose the one that prioritizes more than the other. Or maybe, we stuck in between choosing a right one over the other. Whatever we do, there are consequences!

Leisure:

But do we actually think about the consequences? What about the leisure? Researchers write, Asian young people appear to have a quarter to a third (1/12th) of their time for leisure. What do we prefer to do in this time? Do we invest it or just spend it, unwisely? These days, the world is shut down due to the corona virus disease. World economy is falling apart and people are dying at a heart-wrenching rate. Shutting down everything means we chose lives and health of people over money.  As a consequence, people have more time for leisure. And time has given an option. Either you invest it, or you waste it! While we are waiting for better and healthier days to come, we must realize that we are never going to get months of leisure after this corona-crisis ends. There are two ways to look at it. One, it is a once in a life-time opportunity, use it to grow yourself in the areas you could not focus when you were busy doing “life”. Two, it is a once in a life-time opportunity, use it for entertainment, live differently and enjoy before you return to the “life”.

I think youths who believe the former are incredible at utilizing time. And youths who believe the later have options.

Utilization:

Everyone is different, everyone has different hobbies, passions and choices. There are a lot of things, activities and ways to spend time.  To list them, reading, writing, gaming, drawing, eating, cooking, Netflix-ing, singing, tiktok-ing, scrolling (Facebook and Instagram feeds), talking, listening are some of the common ones that I can remember now. But at utilizing or wasting time, most of us are much of a muchness.

No one wants to waste their leisure doing nothing. Still, we do. We can make our free time being recreational yet productive. To be honest, this may not apply to all of the youths, these are some hacks which I think can be helpful.

First, know what you are good at, what interests you or what you have been longing to learn and work on. Think of something doing which makes you feel content and happy. Or what you envy of people being able to do something you cannot. Use this envy as a positive inspiration. May it be dancing or cooking; vlogging or blogging; singing or writing. Anything. Ask yourself and don't lie when you answer it. In short, find your passion or a hobby. If you don’t have one, create one. Once you realize what you love, you start and once you start, you start enjoying. The main thing is never stop believing in yourself.

Second, find a new passion and follow the same algorithm. Tadaa! There it is. This is not a new hack or something. This is not the ground rule either. As I said, we have options and one of those is here. I am trying the same and I'm loving it.

Considering time utilization, we know what, how and why- what I love doing, how I can get to it and why do I do it- and that is enough. Well, in my case, I know, most of the times. The only problem is I don't start. The first step is always the toughest, yet we can eventually figure it out. In the first two weeks of this lockdown, I was just eating, sleeping and watching TV series. I wanted to take a break from the early morning alarms and college assignments. I did. However, I started feeling bored doing nothing. I was bored of getting bored. I thought of things I wanted to do but couldn’t because of the time I did not have. I set my milestones.

I always wanted to buy and put wall stickers on the wall of my room, so I decorated the wall by myself; I painted a simple yet beautiful mural. I learned cooking new recipes. I read few books and watched several documentaries. I learned video-editing and I did one, of which I am actually proud. Now that I can afford time, I finally am pursuing an online course on Machine Learning I could not before. I am learning new programming skills to add more beauty in a project I have been working on. I have enrolled myself in self-development trainings and webinars. I am trying to get involved in a few social organizations. All these things push me to do more.

I spend most of the time with my family. We discuss history, politics, social issues, problems and alternatives. All these things never fascinated me as they do now. 55 days of lockdown and I find myself evolving. What I found out is that the only thing we need to focus on is give ourselves a chance, and then what happens is that we go with the tide. Time changes and we change with time, we evolve!

Writing this blog was one of my milestones. And I am happy that I have done this. I have found changes in me. Positive changes. I questioned myself, how do I look at this once in a life time opportunity. I didn't lie. I tried and I achieved, at least something that I never had.

So what do you want to do with this opportunity you've got?

Test it and taste it.