Why We Don't Have Time to Think, Dream, and Strategize?

4-Reasons Why We Don't Have Alone Time

Alone time, quiet time, creative time, time to breath, margin, or whatever you call it, most people would say they do not have enough of it.

The list of excuses for why we don't have QUIET TIME to reflect, meditate, think life through, and dream would take way too long to list out and would require much stronger listening attentively skills than I possess.

Here are the four core reasons we do not put time aside to focus on the really important things in life:

1. We do not have boundaries. We have no fences for allowing people into our lives. Most of us let other people set our priorities, wreck our calendar, and basically walk with muddy shoes through the LIVING ROOM of our life.

The simple solution is to put up fences with NO TRESPASSING signs on them, enforced with a pit bull or a shot gun. And, this fence must have some gates so that, once you have let people in, you can let them leave so that you can be alone for a time.

2. We do not put value on QUIET TIME. We find time to do what we value. That we find time to eat and sleep every day is no great wonder. That we find time to play games on Facebook, watch Classic Sports, and do busy work proves that our values are messed up. IF we put value on QT we would have QT.

One solution is to begin to shift your values and to place QT at the top of that list. Read those people who encourage creativity. Believe that you will begin to actualize your dream (begin to live your life) when you can be quiet enough to clarify what it is to truly be wealthy.

3. We are addicted to distraction. We are being distracted to death. Our addiction to information, entertainment, and really, really IMPORTANT NEWS is draining the life right out of us. It is a slow death, a sort of decay, but the signs are all there. We get more excited about Twilight than an election. We get more excited about Weiner Gate than we do about the budget crisis. We pay top dollar for concerts, tequila, and the latest electronics but cannot find it in our budget or in our calendar to attend a Parenting Class, a Marriage Retreat, or find a time of simple reflection.

One solution is to recognize it is an addiction, to confess it as an addiction, to seek help from someone, to seek the help of Someone Higher, and to take steps to walk out of the addiction.

4. We are afraid. What will we hear when it is silent? Will we even like ourselves when we hear ourselves without the constant interference of someone else? How will we know if we are successful without our bosses telling us we are (or the car we drive, the house we live in, the paycheck we cash)? How will we know what we want without the TV shouting at us, the internet pitching to us, and the latest greatest, to be forgotten tunes blaring in our ears?

The solution to being afraid of being quiet, of being alone, is to be quiet, to be alone. To quietly yet resolutely face the space that is quiet in front of you.

Stop fighting the excuses. They are superficial. Look for the root of the WHY you refuse to be alone, quiet and living with plenty of margin on the page.