Tick Tock

I had an opportunity to watch Alice and the Looking Glass. I loved the film, loved the message and as has become typical when I’m watching meant for children movies (not that this was one necessarily), I was taking notes and this one did not disappoint. In addition to doozies like these from Alice Kingsleigh:

“The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible.”

and “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

I have to admit the most ‘holy shit’ moment for me was when Time (yes, just Time, not Father Time, just Time) takes one of his many hanging pocket watches, representing what was obviously each person’s life-TIME, and closes it saying “Your time is up. I hope you used it well.” It got me thinking, how many of us think of our time, our life-TIME this way? How many of us are using our time well or making the most of what little of it we have on this Earth?

I remember listening to a great audio book, one I’m sure I wrote the name of somewhere and simply don’t remember, which talked about not worrying so much about our age, because that number represents time that has already passed. It emphasized that what we should really be occupying our mind-space with is the time we have left and what we were going to do with it. I couldn’t agree more. I find that very often, we treat time as if will never run out. We procrastinate, we push our dreams aside for another day, we don’t take the time to even discover what those dreams are, what our passions are.

As if we had all the time in the world, we simply let our lives pass us by worrying about the past, worrying about the future and not really paying attention to the present, to THIS time right now. Notice I said ‘we let our lives pass us by’, I didn’t say we LIVE our lives. We have a ‘born on’ date and a ‘died on’ date with only a dash in between. That dash however, is where life happens. That dash represents everything we do during our time here, however long or short that is. Only we know how to make the most of it. Only we can decide for ourselves what we want that dash to look like. And trust me, the decision is made regardless. If YOU haven’t made that decision for yourself, someone else has made it for you.

From where I stand, it appears that to truly live means we are living with passion. It means we have taken the time to uncover what we are truly passionate about and what drives us to make the most of our dash. I can’t tell you how many times this comes up during a coaching conversation. As a dream life mentor, people come to me because they are at a point in their lives where they feel unsatisfied, stuck, unfulfilled and one of the first questions I ask is “Are you living in passion? Are you dedicating your life to something you are truly passionate about?”

Ten out of ten times, they are not which is why these feelings are surfacing. As someone who has been there, I can relate so my next question is usually something to the tune of “If you knew you had one year to live, what would you do with your time?” Typically, this helps to put things into perspective to, at the very least, start to dig and so the transformation begins.

My question to you today is, if your time were up tomorrow, would you say you used it well? I’m not trying to be gloomy or in-your-face about it, oh, bullshit, yes I am because time is fleeting, it’s passing and the decision is yours to either let it run out or to grab your life-TIME by the reigns and make the most of it.

As Alice said “I used to think time was a thief. But you give before you take. Time is a gift. Every minute. Every second.”

Adventure on Dreamers! To help uncover your passion and design your dream life, visit me at www.dreamerssucceed.com