The Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

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Updated 7 years ago

‘The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.’ said the Philosopher,
Bertrand Russell.

I saw this on a friends Timeline when I logged into my Facebook account
this morning and after sharing it to my own Timeline I had an instant urge
to write a blog about it.

That was after I googled Bertrand Russell to make sure that he was actually
a philosopher rather than the 1930’s jazz musician I erroneously thought he
was! Yes, seriously….no disrespect to the great Man since it is most definitely
me who should be embarrassed as I’m someone who thinks he is pretty well
informed on the subject of philosophy! Just goes to show, there’s always
room for improvement! Anyway, I digress….

This really resonated with me as it serves as a reminder that we only get one
shot at life. The only two certainties in this World are birth and death. That
bit in between that we often fail to realize is very short is what we call ‘Life’
and we must insure that we make the most of it. It is not a dress rehearsal
and there are no re-winds.

I’ve seen a lot of people posting about their frustration at their lack of progress
through the WA programme, or beating themselves up because they’ve had to
take time out to deal with Stuff-of-life issues.

Get what, guys and girls….IT DOESN’T MATTER. Life goes on. So, you’ve
dropped a bit in the search engine rankings or you haven’t completed that
phase of the Bootcamp in the time you set yourself. But WA has not run away
whilst you weren’t looking.

When I was in Network Marketing, I would often hear the ‘Leaders’ pressing
this point that ‘You’ve only got one shot in this life, etc’ in order to spur us on
to greater efforts to build our business and bump up their…..oops, sorry -
OUR pay cheques.

Looking back on it, I now realize they had it arse about face. That’s ‘the wrong
way round’ to those not familiar with that expression!

They would bang on at us to put our lives on hold to build our business so that
we could have all the time to enjoy doing all the things we enjoyed….LATER.

But they never actually let on what ‘Later’ was. And they didn’t even seem to be
at ‘Later’ themselves despite some of them having over 20 years in the business
behind them. For all their massive pay cheques, they had no life outside their
business.

We should all work our businesses as hard as we can IN THE TIME WE HAVE
AVAILABLE TO DO IT. That does not mean that we have to put our lives on
hold.

It does not mean that we have to spend every minute of every hour we are not
either sleeping on working our day jobs flogging ourselves half to death on our business.

When I worked a job and wanted to take a holiday I would simply go to my boss
for the form, fill it in and give it back for him to approve. Never, in all my years in
the employment of someone else did anyone moan at me for asking for the time
off I was due.

That most certainly changed when I went into Network Marketing and became…
ahem…..‘my own boss’.

God forbid that I should actually spend any time when I wasn’t asleep or at
my workplace not doing some business building activity or other. Whether it
was spending hours every evening and all weekend on the phone to my team
or my prospects, or stuffing leaflets through letter boxes, my Upline would be incredulous if I told them that the Wife and I had gone away for a weekend
break or we’d taken the boys to KFC or to watch a movie.

‘Richard, did you at least give your business card to the person you paid
and tell them what a wonderful, life changing opportunity they could get
into?’
‘Richard, did you leaflet the cinema car park?’
‘Richard, you were miles away from home and you didn’t take the
opportunity to put out hundreds of leaflets and expand your business into
a new area….?’
Shock, horror…’I’ll only give my precious time to people who are serious
about building their business, you understand….’

I only wish I’d responded at the time ‘You’d be better off spending some of
your ‘precious time’ actually relaxing and enjoying yourself and leading a
little bit of the lifestyle you keep telling me this is all about.’

Yes, we all have to pay either the price of discipline or the price of regret.
Jim Rohn’s analogy is that it is the difference between having a day at the
beach or owning the beach. And he’s right.

But where do we draw the line?

I remember at one of my old MLM company seminars, one of the speakers
came up onto the stage to tell us how he had been rewarded with a free,
brand new car by the company for the growth in his business. He was
absolutely made up – and quite rightly so - that he was able to give the car
to his daughter for her 18th birthday.

Naturally he got lots of cheers and ‘oooohs’ and ‘aaaaahs’ from the audience,
as they dabbed their tearful eyes with their tissues. I wasn’t dabbing my eyes
but I was most certainly clapping the guy until my hands were sore.

I was genuinely impressed by what he had achieved and by what he was able
to do with it, until I heard what he said next. Then I really started to question it.

It went something like ‘My daughter has hardly seen me for the past 5 years
whilst I’ve been working towards this. I’ve missed her teens, I’ve missed her
growing from a little girl into a young women, I’ve missed her graduation.’ And
on he went until he got to the best bit….

‘But now I’m able to (get this…..!) MAKE IT ALL UP TO HER (yep, that’s what
he said!) by giving her a brand new car for her 18th birthday.

The way he interpreted ‘You’ve only got one chance, no dress rehearsals, no
re-winds’ etc, was VASTLY different from the way I interpret it, I can tell you!

I wonder what his daughter would have rather had? A brand new car for her
18th or 5 quality years with her Dad during the most formative and emotionally vulnerable years of her life? The very time she would have needed him most.

Those of us here who have young children in our lives, be they our kids, grand
kids, or great grand kids need to remind ourselves of one crucial thing. To them
‘love’ is spelt ‘T I M E’.

Right, that’s the example out of the way, now I’ll get to the point.

When we join a programme such as WA, one of the key motivators for all or
most of us is to achieve some kind of work / life balance that we can’t get in
a job. In my experience, that is actually why most people come into Network
Marketing, or any other work from home opportunity too. The initial financial
motive is usually because there is too much month left at the end of the money
and they just need that little bit extra to make ends meet. The dreams of the
big bucks usually come at a later stage.

If we get so fixated at building our business that we throw ourselves into it at
the expense of everything else that is going on in our lives, then we are really
defeating our original purpose.

Life still has to be lived. Yes, LIVED. We are allowed to take time out and have
a bit of fun. We are allowed to go away and not log into our accounts until we
get back home – or even the day after we get back home! And we don’t have to
feel guilty for doing it.

I haven’t seen any statistics, but I’m willing to bet that burnout is the cause of
at least as many people quitting programmes such as WA as is perceived ‘failure’
by not getting those all elusive quick results.

We have to remind ourselves that we run our businesses – our businesses do
not run us. We are the Master, our business is the servant, not the other way
round.

If we lose track of that, then we might just as well go back to our jobs where,
whilst we can never be free, at least the burden of responsibility for our future
can be placed in part on somebody else’s shoulders.

Is that you want? When you’re beating yourself up because you’re not quite as
far forward as you either wanted or expected to be, just remind yourself of why
you joined. Enjoying the journey is every bit as important as enjoying the
destination.

If necessary, adjust the timestamp on your goals so that, whilst they still stretch
you and make you work, they are at least achievable in the face of unforeseen
events or simply needing to take a break and re-charge your batteries.

Obviously you can’t keep moving everything to the right and using that as
convenient justification for not giving it your best effort, but when all is said and
done, you can only do your best and you can only truly do your best if you actually
allow yourself to switch off from time to time.

Go and look after your sick Grandmother, go and see to that bit of the garden
that looks a mess, go and do that bungee jump, go out and paint the town red
and wake up next day with the hangover from hell, go and do a spot of fishing,
go and play a round of golf (well...maybe not golf lol!) ) go for that dirty weekend
with your Partner.

It is not frivolous self-indulgence – it is your right and it is your responsibility for
your own wellbeing.

You only live once.