Tape Measure of Your Life

Let’s start by taking five minutes to do a very simple exercise.  Open up a tape measure and extend it to eighty-five inches.  Don’t just visualize it, take the time to find a tape measure and extend it.  Those eighty-five inches are the average lifespan of a person, more or less.  Now, measure out your age in inches.  Do you see what is left?  That is how much time you most likely have.  Sure, you may live past that. You may also get hit by a bus before it.  Just realize that if you are forty-five years old you most likely have thirty-five years left to live your life. 

At the same time, it is just as important to realize that everything you have done, every precious memory, every little adventure, everything that you know or have even forgotten up to this point has been rolled into whatever inches you measured out.  If you are only half-way to eighty-five then you could do everything that you have ever experienced all over again.  If you are in your twenties, you can live all of your current life over again four times. 

This should be you wakeup call.  No matter how many inches you have left, your life is far from over.  Even if you only have a few years remaining, or even a few days, why would you want to spend them by doing anything less than by being true to YOURSELF?  

Look down at your tape measure again.  No matter how many are stretched out before you, each mark should be a call for celebration because you can have that much more to experience.

Each mark should also be a reminder to be careful of how you spend your time.   Cherish it.  Protect it.  Most important enjoy it.  It is the one commodity you cannot save, you cannot lock away, and you can never get back.  Every second is an investment in your future.  So spend it wisely.  Because even if you don't spend it, once it is gone it is gone forever. 

So invest a few seconds to be aware of how you spend your time.  Invest the time to be mindful of the things you do so that you do good things.  Invest the time to give to others and to help others.  Make sure you invest your time wisely because that is what it is, an investment.  Make sure that when you give it to someone else, you give it out carefully, as you would with money.  When you do spend it, make sure that you spread it evenly and lovingly.  That is the best way to garner a positive return on your investment in your time. 

Above all, and most important, make sure you keep some for yourself.  That can often be the best way to invest your most precious commodity – by saving some for yourself.












Jeffrey Cannon
Simple Truth