When asked "what's the biggest mistake we make in life?", the buddha replied, "This bigges
t mistake is you think you have time."Time is free but it's priceless. You can't own it, b
ut you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. And once it's lost you can nev
er get it back.That average person lives 78 years.We spend 28.3 years of our life sleeping
. That's almost a third of our life but 30% of us struggle to sleep well.We spend 10.5 yea
rs of our life working but over 50% of us want to leave our current jobs.Time is more valu
able than money. You can get more money, but you can never get more time.We spend 9 years
on TV and social media.We spend 6 years doing chores.We spend 4 years eating and drinking.
We spend 3.5 years in education.We spend 2.5 years grooming.We spend 2.5 years shopping.We
spend 1.5 years in child care.We spend 1.3 years commuting.That leaves us with 9 years.Ho
w will we spend that time?Steve Jobs said "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living
someone else's life."So there's good news and there's bad news.That bad news is time flies
, the good news is you're the pilot.Imagine you wake up every day with $86,400 in your ban
k account and at the end of the night it's all gone whether you spent it or not. And then
the next day you get another $86,400.What would we do with it?Everyday 86,400 seconds are
deposited into your life account. At the end of the day, once they're all used up, you get
a new 86,400 seconds.We would never waste it if it was money, so why do we waste it when
it comes to time?Those seconds are so much more powerful than dollars, because you can alw
ays make more dollars, you can't always make more time.To realize the value of one year, a
sk a student who failed a grade.To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who lost t
heir child in the final month.To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of an onlin
e magazine.To realize the value of one hour, ask the couple who's in a long-distance relat
ionship.To realize the value of one minute, ask the person who just missed a bus, train or
plane.To realize the value of one second, ask the person who just missed an accident.And
to realize the value of a millisecond, ask the person who just came second at the Olympics
.We think that it's people wasting our time, but it's really us giving them the permission
to do that. And in reality these two people live inside us. Don't let someone be a priori
ty, when all you are to them is an option.Some of us lose the people most important to us,
because we don't value their time. Some of us don't recognize how important someone is to
us until they're gone.Inside all of us are two voices — one voice that wants to uplift, o
ne voice that wants us to expand; one voice that wants us to grow. And then there's the ot
her voice — the voice that holds us back, the voice that makes us lazy, the voice that mak
es us complacent, the voice that restricts us from our potential.Every day from the moment
we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, inside of us there's this battle between the two
voices.And guess which one wins?The one that we listen to the most.The one that we feed.T
he one that we amplify.It is our choice of how we use our time.Life and time are the best
two teachers.Life teaches us to make good use of time, and time teaches us the value of li
fe.And as William Shakespeare said,"Time is very slow for those who want, very fast for th
ose who are scared, very long for those who are sad, very short for those who celebrate. B
ut for those who love, time is eternal."