In a Hurry?

Are you in a hurry? I always am. My brain has no “on/off” switch, so it’s either operating at full speed or I’m asleep.  This is probably because I have an obsession about not wasting anything – time, resources, or money.  It seems to me that any time I’m not thinking I’m wasting time.

During World War II, when I was only five years old, my mother complained about gasoline rationing as she was driving us somewhere.

“Do they give you enough gas to waste?” I asked.

“What do you mean, Alan?”

“Well, when you stop at stoplights, the engine keeps running and uses gas.”

My mom laughed.  “Yes, we have enough gas to keep running the car at stoplights.”  (Today my wife’s car engine automatically turns off at stoplights, so I must have been ahead of my time.)

At night my father used to heat the house to 55 degrees.  “No sense wasting money on heat when we’re sleeping,” he said.  (For those of you who grew up in Minneapolis or Toronto, you should know that I was a boy in Southern California.)

To help me waste as little time as possible, I’ve established a few rules I live by:

1. Moving from one place to another wastes time. Accordingly, I do it as infrequently as possible and don’t really enjoy a journey in a car or an airplane – unless I’m reading a book or doing something else to justify (to myself) the use of the time.
2. Do it once. That saves time.  Of course, I often have to force myself to slow down and do it right.  Or – horrors of horrors – I have to do it again.  I have an ongoing internal battle about taking enough time to do a proper job, or just being quick.
3. If possible, do it at home. When I watch a sporting event on TV in my bedroom or family room I don’t have to travel to Denver or downtown Los Angeles.  The moment an event is over I can eat dinner or go to bed.  I don’t have to find my car, navigate the parking lot, and then drive or fly back home.  I used to fantasize about living my entire life inside my own house.  Be very careful what you wish for!

Am I suggesting any change of thought or behavior for you? Maybe.  If you’re not satisfied with the way you are living part of your life, you might consider a change.  But, please, hurry up about it.

Alan