The Beauty of Having Less Time

In the summer of 2013 I travelled to a small town in South Africa called Chintsa Village to volunteer as a teacher. When my teaching obligations came to a close I drove to a city called Port Elizabeth. Not long into the drive I turned on the radio and was met by the distinct voice of a South African preacher in the middle of a sermon. I'll never forget his words:  

“Take my house. Take my car. You can even take all my money,” he said. “But PLEASE, do not take my time!  Do not take my time because that I cannot replace!”

Moments later the station mysteriously faded out. But those few seconds were all I needed to radically reframe how I viewed my time.

I finally understood my life was flying by. I did not have the time to build a business and be around people who refused to get out of their own way and seemed fixed on taking me down with them. I began to let go of what was not serving me and be liberated by the reality that my time was finite. As a result, I focused wholeheartedly on work that mattered to me despite what others thought. And in the process, I developed the ability to define success and what living fully really meant.