No Time-Outs

An athlete competes and is alive during a competition. Then there is training and preparing.

In between training and competing, there are time-outs. In life there are no time-outs (sleep aside?). How often have you said, or heard someone say, “I’m in a place in my life” or “I need to work on myself”?

That’s asking for a time-out in a game where there are none. It’s like walking off the field in the middle of the game. This mindset is often the result of a tragic event and/or an epiphany that wrong choices have been made consistently. This is a natural and understandable emotional response.

Everything happens for a reason. Therefore, everyone you come into contact with today and tomorrow is for a reason. That person may need something from you, or need to give you something you need.  That can’t happen if you are not on the field.

If you have taken yourself out of the game, then you are at best delaying the discovery of your purpose and fulfilling your potential. If your reason for “working on yourself” is so that you may be the person you were created and wish to be, then you can’t be a spectator of life. You need to be “working on yourself” during the game. The rest of us need you to play to your potential. If not we all lose.

A woman was considering leaving her teaching profession to travel and look for the meaning of life. She went to see her spiritual leader, a man known as The Rebbe, for advice. He said to her,

“When you find the meaning of life, will you have enough time left to live a meaningful life? Better to live a meaningful life and find meaning along the way”.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” — Albert Einstein

“Time is limited, so I better wake up every morning fresh and know that I have just one chance to live this particular day right, and to string my days together into a life of action, and purpose.” –  Lance Armstrong

For those who take themselves out of the game of love, consider that a person presented to you may be the one and…

“If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.” – Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca