Random Thoughts-26
November 4th, 2007

A few years ago a friend of mine approached me about joining his network marketing scheme, which involved selling some natural vitamin supplements or something. I tried my best to put him off without being rude. I just wasn't interested. My experience with these types of things had been that they were usually more about signing up people than selling the products.
I am not trying to be too critical here. There are many fine products and many fine, successful people that are able to distribute their products and make a good buck using this system. I'm just not one of those people. Believe me, I've tried.
Then I made the mistake of telling him that my excuse was that I just didn't have the time to put into the enterprise. His comeback has stuck with me for some time. He said that it wasn't a matter of having the time available, it was a matter of making the time available. He said he didn't go bowling on Sunday nights; not because he didn't have the time, he just didn't want to take the time.
So, there it was. My excuse was blown out of the water. I'ts the same reason that we don't have time to exercise, or time to bake that cake from scratch or time to mend the fence. It's not that we don't have the time, it's just that we choose to do something different with the time available to us.
Without the time excuse, my only way out, then, was to be rude. No, just kidding! Now, I can't remember exactly how I got out of that one, but there's probably a whole other column, in there, about fibbing and how, sometimes, it just can't be avoided.
I was having a conversation, with another good friend, about the old days, when we were both a lot younger and co-workers in the construction industry. At that time, when we said, "It's Wednesday?!"; it meant that there was way too much time before the weekend.
Now, our priorities have changed and when we say, "It's Wednesday?!", it means that there's no way we have enough time to get everything done by the end of the work-week! Oh, how times have changed!
According to The Rolling Stones: "Time is on my side, yes it is." Well, maybe it was when I was a twenty-year-old green construction worker praying for some "Beer Clouds" to break up the work-week because I couldn't wait for the weekend! And, in my youthful mind, at the time, it wasn't my top priority to make sure that deadlines were being made. My boss, on the other hand, probably had a far different outlook.
If you have some time to spare, (ha, ha), log on to the old internet and look up "Time" on Wikepedia. In an effort to define "Time", they talk about it being part of the fundamental structure of the universe and the physics of time and space as fundamental quantities and stuff. Interesting as it sounds, it might have helped me understand "Time's" meaning, but in an effort to completely understand what they were saying, and in the two minutes it took to read and the four minutes it took to reread and reread it; it adds up to six minutes of time that I'll never get back!
"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save."-Will Rogers (1879-1935).