Have you ever wondered about the amount of time spent on feeling inconvenienced about things that could otherwise been avoided? Meaning, how much time do we waste on little things?
For example, I spoke to my friend Julie and told her I recently received orthotics (Shoe inserts to alleviate discomfort in the feet and back). Julie explained she had a pair and they worked wonderfully to the point where she was pain-free after six months of use.?
Consequently, she chose not to wear them except when her feet began to hurt again, which was a gradual realization rather than an overnight one. I asked why not just wear them all of time? she wanted her body to adjust naturally without inserts. Obviously that wasn’t possible, as her discomfort kept resurfacing.
After some further questioning, I surmised with each new pain cycle, (approximately every two months) Julie had dealt with her inconvenience for two hours a day for five weeks. So roughly 280 hours a year or 40% of her life, she has and will continue to be saddled with, something she could have avoided.
So if Julie is 40 years old and lives to be 80, she’ll rack up 11,200 hours or 4.2 years of foot pain. Looking at it from that perspective, no doubt I’ll be wearing my orthotics 24/7.
So while writing this I realized many things I’ve squandered my time on. Do these sound familiar? How many times have you had those 22nd and 23rd grocery bags slip from your fingers when an additional trip into the house would have been a more efficient choice? What happens when you forget to take your medication? When duct tape is used to fix something it is, usually a good idea to get a ‘new something? of whatever it is rather than complain why it has to be duct taped again.
We all could come up with many scenarios where this topic applies and so I wonder? do we make modifications to our ‘isms? after something prompts us to think about it? As humans are we just inefficient or do we even care?
More often than not, alleviating cumbersome occurrences, whether mental or physical, stems from an event where there’s no choice but to change. Like, the 3-pack-a-day cigarette smoker who is told by his doctor to quit the habit or the next heart attack will be his last one.
In fairness, people have to experience things in order to gauge what is considered ‘time well spent.? So now that my brain is realizing more things I have to improve on to feel better or complain less, perhaps I should consider how much time I frittered writing this article.