Maybe it’s just me, but when I sit down to do something I really want to do, like, you know, build that dream writing career which is beckoning me from the rooftops, all of a sudden the last thing I feel like doing is writing. Moments earlier, I was very awake. Seconds before I was talking with my house mate, full of energy. Now, I’m not so sure. I stare into the mirror in my room. I pace around, pick up some forgotten clothes and make sure the papers are square on my desk.
Then I do what I know I shouldn’t. I pick up my phone and I throw away the next 30 minutes I have, bam just like that. Why is it that every time I pick up my phone some numbing brain deadening potion is injected into my brain. I forget about my task for the night. I forget about the dreams, the hopes, the grit. All I can think about is ‘ohhhhh, I wonder what this Instagram influencer is up to’. I watch her story. Then, I watch her friend’s because she looks cute too.
Next it autoscrolls to the next story and I watch that too. Then I think OMG I need a top like hers, and I’m online shopping. There’s so much. The top needs shoes. The shoes need socks. My writing needs to start but that the last thing on my mind. A full shopping cart later, I pause. Oh, yes… what was I going to do? I check the time: WHAT?! An hour is gone. I put down my phone.
This happens all too often.
Are we too busy watching other people’s lives to live out our own?
There is nothing wrong with some healthy Insta-stalking or Facebook for that matter, but don’t do it when you have set aside time to do something meaningful. Do it when you’re waiting for the train. Do it when 17 people are ahead of you at the grocery store. Don’t do it when you know you have something important to get done. We are throwing away our own lives because we are too busy and easily distracted by everyone else’s.
There isn’t enough time in the day.
Really?
We run around watching other people live their lives and our priorities get shoved into the back corner, behind the stove. They come out occasionally and then we dare to complain about things not moving forward.
Imagine, just imagine what you could get done if you focused on you. You and what you need to do. A while back there was a huge study which claimed that it takes 10 000 hours to make a master of a skill set. That’s a crazy amount of time, I mean really? Yes really, and I think the guy was onto something. But how? How? I kindly ask, can we fit in the large amount of time required to do our lives well if we are spending hours each day watch other people, clicking here, clicking, there, liking this post, opening our Facebook every time a red dot appears.
It’s time to make some decisions and get disciplined. You heard me, disciplined. Check your phone only at certain times. Make dedicated ‘dream time’ times, and do something productive in them. DO IT.
Distraction is the biggest destiny dream stealer loose in our world today. There is everything to grab in a hand’s reach and not enough of us stop and ask what we are grabbing, if we really need it and why we grabbed it in the first place. Don’t let someone else grab your destiny. Do not let lack of focus steal your story.
Don’t you dare complain at the end of your life for the life you missed living – you’ve be warned. It’s your story. Your responsibility and your destiny. Go live it. God wants you to live it to the full. Go grab it. Hold on tightly until your knuckles are white and your nails tear. Look everyone in the face and refuse to let go.