Time.
When I was younger, I felt as if I had all the time in the world.
As the years have passed, boredom has been replaced by incessant working.
I used to hang around the playground with my childhood friends. We’d play games and figure out how to pass the time. We always had fun, but boredom was that 5th friend who tended to spend many afternoons with us.
On January 1st of this year, I took a gander at my calendar for the upcoming 12 months. I noticed something very disturbing.
Every hour of my life for the next 6 months was already accounted for.
If at any point until June 16th, 2019, I want to do something spur of the moment, I will be forced to cancel a prior engagement.
So far, I’ve made only 3 “spur-of-the-moment” changes to my calendar.
If anybody hacks my work-cell, they will essentially have knowledge of my exact location for every minute until June 16th, 2019, provided I continue sticking to my schedule as staunchly as I have been.
This self-imposed rigidity has added so much stress to my daily life. A month ago, I was in the shower, and I went blind for 10 full minutes. I had to sit down in the shower because my vision had completely vanished. Then last week, on the subway, I went completely deaf for 7 full minutes. I couldn’t hear a thing.
Though I’m finding myself more productive and organized than ever before, my eyes haven’t stopped twitching in 4 weeks.
As I write this, I’m realizing that the two senses most affected are my vision and hearing. I’m guessing this is probably due to the fact that 80% of all my time (virtually all my time except sleep) has been devoted to reading and listening to music, reading using my sight and music using my hearing.
In the past week alone, I’ve read over 1500 pages and listened to over 100 hours of music.
I need to incorporate my other senses somehow.
I guess I need to start smelling my books… and rubbing my hands all over them… and, by God, I’m ashamed to say it, start eating some of the pages?
Until next time,
Michael J. Erickson, CEO & Co-Founder
