Just a second
If you had one million dollars, how much of it would you use to buy things to make your life better? How much would you use to circumvent the lives of others?
It may sound like a foolish question. I am assuming your answer is that you would spend the entire one million dollars making your life and the lives of other people better. It seems wasteful to squander monetary resources to hinder someone else.
Even if you have enemies or people with whom you disagree, it does not make sense to spend hard earned cash on them. It is far better to ignore those folks and focus your attention on your own needs and the needs of your own causes.
Right?
Now let’s look at another number; 86,400. That is the number of seconds you have in a day. We choose how to spend them. How many of those seconds do you want to use for your own causes? How many of those seconds do you want to use to circumvent the lives of others?
People spend a lot of time arguing, bearing false witness, lying, slandering, and circumventing others because of differences of opinion. Some cannot abide another to have a differing value, opinion, or political viewpoint. Such an individual is the object of ridicule, protest, and condescension.
In my mind, time is money. Why waste a precious commodity in a vindictive, rancorous pursuit? Why fill your life with anger and bitterness? You would be time and money ahead to use your resources to do what you think is right instead of trying to block what someone is doing, in your opinion, wrong.
I remember a contest we had in junior high school. Three jars were placed in the office. One jar for each grade; seventh, eighth, and ninth. The jars were to hold money for a fundraiser. A penny would count one point for the grade. A nickel, dime, or quarter counted against.
Some people put pennies in their own jar, while others put silver coins in the other grade’s jars. It was chaos, but all of the money went to a good cause. Even then, I thought it was counter productive to put silver in one grade’s jar or the other. My theory was to put all of your money into pennies and place them in your own jar.
I suppose it would be logical to split your silver money between the two grades of which you were not a member, but the metaphor works better to make my point if we stay positive.
So stop belaboring points about problems and talk about solutions. Don’t waste your time on anger and negativity. Instead, use your energy and resources to “do” something. Be a builder instead of one who tears down.
Life is short and we only have 86,400 seconds in a day. In my book one second used to hold a grudge or plot someone’s demise is wasted time.
What a world that would be if we were to live that way. What a world that would be.
Until the next time
John Strain