There is an old Hindi (Indian) song roughly translates as following (or at least I would like to translate as that):
“Hundred years I would spend waiting for my love
If I had another hundred years, I would hug her…”
If I could live as long as I want I would spend enough time with people I love and admire, learn all the subjects and languages in the world, explore the whole world, experience all the good things in this world and know about the whole cosmos. But we are sent into this world to play a role called life and it has a limited time. Nobody knows when the end whistle of their game is going to blow. What I do now and repeatedly has consequences. When I chose to spend time on less important stuff, I am snatching the time I could allocate on more important stuff.
What’s most important for me could be minor to you. A thing worth millions of dollars for me could be your zero and vice versa. Stephen Covey on his popular book “7 habits of highly effective people” says start with the end in mind. On the day you are in the coffin when people come with flowers on their hand, what do you want them to think/talk about you? Or what you wish you had done or not done in your life.
Let’s compare what you want to achieve or where you want to be at the end of your life to a car race. Imagine there are 7 hills on the horizon and it’s your choice which hill you want to be on the top of, you can choose only one hill. You can also choose not to climb any of the hills and stay wherever you are now for the rest of your life because being on the top of the hill does not matter much to you.
The countdown has already begun. Now let’s prepare for the race. Remember your goal is the top of the hill, no matter what. You are aiming to reach there faster and more efficiently. You can not change the “car type” you have, that’s your instincts. If you try to speed up more than what you can tolerate you might break down, fixing it might cause longer waste of time. You can not go to the gym and pull up 200 pounds straight away on the first day. You should stretch your limits but not break it.
Your willpower is the fuel for your car. Your act/execution is the actual car driving. You don’t know the full route to the destination yet or how many alternative ways are there or many hurdles are there. There might be temporary downhills before the starting of uphill and might come to the points where you feel like this is the end there are no further ways. On your way, there might be people cheering or crushing you. If you concentrate on that, you might be late for your destination, you have to ignore the surrounding noises. You might meet fellow riders on the way, depending on their own destinations, you have to decide if it’s worth riding together in a group with them for certain time. Sometimes there might be little hurdles on your path that you can move away or sometimes you might have to take an alternate route or sometimes you might even have to make your own pavement towards your destination.
Remember it’s a long race and there is no shortcut. Consistency and discipline matters. Your decisions and choices along the way also matter. The idea is, there is a calculation for everything. Just because you have a good car and full fuel cannot take you to the destination or just because are a good driver may not be enough for you to reach your destination either.