It’s Time To Choose

It’s Time to Choose

Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!

Deuteronomy 30:19

A minister, a boy scout, and a computer executive were flying to a meeting in a small private plane. About halfway to their destination, the pilot came back and announced that the plane was going to crash and that there were only three parachutes and four people.

The pilot said, “I am going to use one of the parachutes because I have a wife and four small children,” and he jumped.

The computer executive said, “I should have one of the parachutes because I am the smartest man in the world and my company needs me,” and he jumped.

The minister turned to the boy scout and, smiling sadly, said, “You are young, and I have lived a good, long life. You take the last parachute, and I’ll go down with the plane.”

The boy scout said, “Relax, Reverend, the smartest man in the world just strapped on my backpack and jumped out of the plane!”

A high IQ has never guaranteed good decisions. No matter how superior one’s intelligence, even a genius may not recognize the obvious. You may be quick witted, clever, and intellectually brilliant, but these enviable traits don’t ensure wise judgments. Especially when it comes to saving time.

Most people, no matter how intelligent, neglect their top time-saving device. They wander through their days allowing their schedules to swallow their time—as if they don’t have a choice. You see, making a choice is your secret weapon in combating time stealers. Once you realize that you are in charge of your time, you can begin to do something about it.

“You can’t do anything about the length of your life,” said Evan Esar, “but you can do something about its width and depth.” You can choose how you spend the days you have, and you alone are responsible for your choice. If you are feeling like your time is wall to wall, don’t look to blame anyone else. Make a new choice.

We shape our lives, not to mention our schedules, by the choices we make. What choice can you make right now to create the pace you long for? What activity can you choose to lop off your schedule? What day or time can you choose to reserve and protect just for the two of you? “When you have to make a choice and you don’t make it,” said William James, “that is in itself a choice.” So the question is not whether you, individually and as a couple, have a choice—each one of us has this inherent time-saving device within our reach—but what your choice will be.

“Time management” is really a misnomer—the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.

—Stephen R. Covey