Yesterday, I found myself looking at
google memory notification on my phone from 2 years ago. As I looked at the photos
which happened to be from my friend’s wedding, I was prompted to check the
other images from the event as well as other saved photos around that period. I
was carried away for about 2 hours deleting pictures, videos from my phone over
a 2-year period. In total, I deleted more than 2,100 images and I still had
more to delete except that time was not on my side.
This got me thinking. I have been having
a challenge with space on my google drive as it has been showing me that it’s
full. And yet, I have filled up my space with all kinds of irrelevant images
including screen shots, pictures of shoes, pictures of crowds I don’t even know
at weddings, graduations, parties, etc.
This moment reminded me of my life as well.
I fill up my days with activities which do not add any value to my life or those
of others and end up coming to the end of the day tired and feeling like I have
not accomplished anything.
I complain that there is no time to do
such things as spending time my wife, calling my mother, siblings, friends or
engaging in a business venture, etc and yet have all the time and energy to
browse social media, watch an entire season of a series in one weekend as well
as check and micro-manage my team. In much the same way that there didn’t seem
to be enough memory on my google drive to add more images to it.
It is similar with life, there doesn’t seem
to be enough time to do the things we truly love and would like to undertake or
experience. But this is more so because much of our limited time is taken up by
less trivial matters of life such as working at jobs we don’t like, being stuck
in traffic, aimless browsing on social media or watching Netflix to get rid of
our boredom.
This is my one and only life I have, the
only space I got and its time to eliminate the meaningless activities and focus
on what truly matters. Let me watch out on the activities (photos) which are
occupying my time (space) so that I don’t come to the end of my life with a
clutter of meaningless moments or experiences.
I end by quoting Lucius Seneca, a Roman
philosopher who wrote the following words more than 2000 years ago which stand
true to this day:
“It is not that we have a short time to
live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently
generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were
all well invested.”
“So it is: we are not given a short life
(space) but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.”
Leave a Reply