How to utilize our time to align with our purpose

We are living in the future.

This isn’t exactly what I thought 2020 would look like when I was a kid, but it is still advanced. Though we do not have hoverboards, we do have boards that are propelled by the shifting of our weight. Though we don’t have holographic messaging (ie; Princess Leia and R2D2), we do have video messaging on our phones. We are not driving hover cars like the Jetsons, but some cars can now drive themselves. All of this to say that the world we live in now is different than the world I grew up in.

We live in easy times, in the sense that we can access the world from the palm of our hand. Whether we want to find a restaurant, a map, see what our friends are up to, buy toilet paper, or find out who the 26th president of the United States was (It’s Theodore Roosevelt by the way, I just googled that); all we have to do is wake up and grab our mobile device. That is easy.

Time saved is time gained

The ability to find answers to questions within a matter of seconds and minutes frees up time in our days. School reports used to take days to complete. We had to grab an encyclopedia and dictionary from the shelf to find information, and those sources provided only base-level insight. The libraries contained the rest of information that we needed to understand the topics.

Now, thanks to the internet and advancements in knowledge sharing; we can take in more information than we know what to do with. Not only can we find the definition of the word meaning, but we can find multiple articles that will give us insight into the idea of meaning. Not only can you find out what years that the American civil war took place, but you can also get a simplified index of key dates, people, battles, and events all on the same website.

These examples are used to drive home the point that we can learn, or at least know things, at a faster rate than ever before. Time has been given back to us. The days needed for research have been reduced to minutes and hours. Opportunity abounds in this new world, and the gap between who can have these opportunities is shrinking. These minutes saved, combined with the knowledge available to anyone with internet access connects the world.

And now that we have this time…

Though finding things is now easier, knowing what we are looking for is the key to unlocking the true potential of each day. It’s the balance between solitude and community, rest and work, selfishness and selflessness, family and friends, and an overall understanding of how to live an intentional life.

We must learn to use this future to our benefit and the benefit of those around us. Take the time to establish our course in life. Establish the core of who we want to be, and we will begin to invest those minutes into what aligns with our course. Productivity can take on many forms, and if what you are doing is pushing you toward who you want to be, then it is an investment.

This future is our reality. This is the world my kids will know, and it is the world I have grown to love. I do get caught up in the nostalgia of my childhood and the simplicity of the past, but that does not mean that those times are gone; it only means that I need to be intentional about providing opportunities that will allow for my kids to share in that experience.

Let’s embrace the gift of time we have in this future, and fly down the rails and not off of them.