Sunday, April 17, 2011

$86,400.00

This month, I’m giving a ‘pep’ talk to all those procrastinators out there, and a good kick in the seat of the pants!
It’s been said many times if you want someone to be accountable for something, hit them in their pocket. People will always follow their money—especially in these bad economic times.
Close your eyes for a minute and imagine you just won $86,400.00 as the result of a contest. And each morning your bank will deposit another $86,400.00 into your private account for your use.

Obviously every prize has rules, just as any game has rules.
1. What you don't spend each day is forfeited to the bank. There's no transferring the money into some other account, and only you can spend it!
2. The bank can end the game without warning, and can tell you the game is over! As a matter of fact, it can close out that account and you won’t receive another dime.

So what would you personally do with the money knowing you had to spend it all each day?

You'd buy everything and anything you've ever wanted, right? Not just for yourself, but for everyone you love, right? You'd probably even donate it, because you couldn't possibly spend it all on yourself, right?


Okay, now consider this. If you put that $86,400 in seconds instead of money, you have your own magical bank.

Every one of us has in our possession, our own magical bank. Most of the time, we take it for granted.

So let’s apply the same rules as we did above.

Every morning, we're given those 86,400, only this time in seconds as a gift of life. Not using that time is lost forever. Sorry folks, but we don't get them back, and it's not credited to any account.

So what you didn't do today, because you procrastinated one more time, is lost forever. The good news though is tomorrow morning your seconds are again replenished, but you’ve already lost the previous days’ seconds. That’s the bank dissolving them . . . without warning.

SO, what will YOU do with your next 86,400 seconds? Will you follow your long awaited dreams by writing that story begging to be told? Will you finish that project you started ages ago promising you’d get to it, but never have? Will you go on that diet you keep putting off? Or will you allow another day to pass you by?

It’s a little different picture when you think this in terms of money vs. time, isn’t it? Gives you a whole other aspect of life.

So what will you do today?

7 comments:

I.J. Parnham said...

This looks like an interesting article. I'll make a note to read it later.

Beate Boeker said...

Great post, Carolyn! I'll start dream-spending that money - but I'll also put those seconds to use! Thank you!

Gina Ardito said...

I'm going to DisneyWorld. Woooooo! :-)

Anonymous said...

I don't know many people who value their time or anyone else's. I certainly do, especially when I lose those seconds forever.

Sandy Cody said...

Darn, I wish I'd read this earlier in the day. (Right now, it's 6:05 PM where I am.) I let a lot of seconds slip by. Great post! A slightly different way of looking at our busy lives.

Rebecca L. Boschee said...

Nice reminder, Carolyn. I'm happy to say that today I resisted the urge to squander precious minutes cleaning my house as originally planned and instead wrote 4,000 words. Now with that money...I think I'll buy a maid!

Carolyn Brown said...

GREAT POST, Carolyn! I'm not a big procrastinator when it comes to writing, but it's another matter when it comes to cleaning closets.