6.30.24

“Long weekend” is a phrase that irritates me. As did it this morning when a friend told me, “I’m off this week!”

What the hell does that even mean?

Does the sun cease to rise? Gravity takes a holiday? Will the precious minutes of your life stop slipping through your fingers this week?

I think not!

“If your job is your hobby you will never work another day in your life,” said someone like Steve Jobs or whomever. And this is commonly taken to mean that you should follow your passion and seek employment in a field that is interesting to you. But I think a better way of considering the matter is to parse out the ways you choose to spend time in accord with their value to you.

Perhaps it is the case that someone pays you to punch a clock, to devote some fixed number of hours to the conduct of a particular task. Let’s call this “your job.” And to the degree that this is a fixed commitment for a fixed amount of compensation without opportunity to achieve greater outcomes through the application of greater energy, I suppose it makes fine sense to devote only that time which is required.

However – I would strongly encourage people not to think of the time not spent on a job like that as “time off.” Instead, think of those hours or days when you are free to do other things as the real “time on” when you can actually do things that will improve your life, the lives of people you care about, or the world. Use that time to find a better “job” that yields greater return on time invested.

This is your life, and it is ending one minute at a time.

Make the most of those minutes.

Do not waste them.