Time…for what it’s worth

There is a quote in the movie “Blow“, you know the one with Johnny Depp where he plays the drug dealer George Jung.  The movie came out in 2001, and I thought he, and the movie were the coolest thing ever for some reason.  We can more than likely blame it on my being 19 years old and in the Navy.  Drugs were the furthest thing from my reality, and I thought the life of this man was interesting.  There’s also a scene where he walks through an air port wearing this all white outfit that I totally mimicked, bell bottoms and all.  Any way, at the end of the movie is a voice over, and it it he says ” Life passes most people by while they’re making grand plans for it.” I have always thought this was a good way to look at things.  That if you are too busy planning stuff, or saying that you will do something or go somewhere “one of these days” that there are plenty of days in the mean time that you are potentially wasting.  I used to be one of those people.  I waited and planned, I figured that things would come along when they were supposed to, and in the right time.  This is not a way to live ya’ll.  This is a way to miss your life.  Do it now if you want to; see it now.

Something that makes me realize the things that I have been fortunate to see and do and experience over the years is something called “On this Day” on Facebook.  You are all familiar with the little option to see your memories I’m sure. I won’t lie, there are some memories that I could live without.  The ones that include people that are no longer in my life for whatever reason, or maybe the times that I was struggling with something.  The ones that I do enjoy are the ones that show me exactly what I was thinking and doing at this moment X amount of years ago.  Today my memories included a day dream about going to Graceland, and I did that three years ago.  In another memory I was looking for pointers on my first horse ride, which I also have under my proverbial belt.  I talked one year about doing my taxes and never using math, while a following year had me lamenting that I had just completed the first day of math class when I began the journey for getting my college degree.  You see there are always things along the time line of life that fit together and make you realize that each day you are given the chance to have a blast, or be a bust.

I have also been thinking more and more about what my time is worth.  This comes from a few different areas.  The first one is the fact that damn near every time I turn around I am in fear of getting ordered to stay at work an additional four hours because the day shift squad has had too many people call out sick.  I know stuff comes up from time to time, and I know that we all find ourselves under the weather, but really?  We here at my job have something called the “stay over list” basically you sign up for a couple days out of the month that you “volunteer” to stay for overtime.  I use that term loosely because choosing the dates on the calendar is mandatory.  Well when it is your stay over day, and there’s too much sick leave, then you stand the chance of getting ordered to stay over an additional four hours after you worked your 12 hour night.  It sucks and we all dread it.  Well not all…some people actually like overtime.  I find myself thinking, how much money is my time worth? How much do they have to pay me for me to lose those four hours of my life and never get them back? This is an answer I will probably never come to because If I am ordered, I just have to stay.  The other ways that I have been thinking about the worth of my time is in the ways that I spend it.  Is the homework more important than the time with my friends or the park with my dog? Is the cleaning something that I can maybe outsource to a company so that I will have more time?

Is time really on my side? Will time come again? Is time in a bottle? and lastly folks..What’s it all worth…How are you spending your time?