While life itself is full of uncertainties and all of us had no say in our being here, once we are here and have become adults, it is prudent that we begin to gradually take control of our lives.
It’s true that we cannot control the weather the same way as we cannot control every aspect of our lives—or what comes our way in life. However, there are major parts of our lives we can influence greatly or control by making conscious decisions in relation to these matters.
In this post, I will introduce you to some of the important aspects of our lives that we can consciously influence to become a better version of ourselves. I’ve done it and the result has been great.
OUR FRIENDS
About 2 years ago, I made a conscious decision to limit my circle of friends and only engage with those who help me grow, improve or become a better person. Any friend or person who is the source of unending dramas, lies or any of those regular headaches was to be courteously avoided.
Since making this decision which I consciously stick to, aided by regularly reminding myself the need to have this in place, I’ve realized that the number of people I loosely call friends have completely shrined. And I’ve had little to no drama or issues in my life.
If you have friends who cannot keep their mouths shut and will pass on secrets or things you do not intend for others to know freely to others, thereby creating a lot of drama in your life, politely keeping less and less in touch with them is the start of taking charge of a major part of your life.
And there are those friends who are stagnant in life. These people do not have any desires to push their lives above the worse and hanging around them only drain you—somewhat turning you into them too. They just talk, without putting in the action required to make things happen.
If you have ambitions, you have to connect with those who at least hold ambitions in life and are keen on achieving them.
I’ve in the last 2 years connected with a lot of people who are internet entrepreneurs, free thinkers and minimalists—as their drive to make money on the web and to simplify life sit with my own focus and ambition.
I’ve achieved more in my personal and professional life in the last 2 years than I did in the 5 years before that.
I do not keep friends anymore simply because they are cool or because I have known them for ages. I make efforts to consider whether each friendship makes me a better person or not and if it doesn’t, I gradually drift away.
As Jim Rohn, the renowned businessman and personal development guru put it “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and that means everyone in your life counts.” So who you call a friend, really matters and if you can take control of this, you will be controlling some aspect of your life.
So, choose your friends wisely.
THE USAGE OF OUR TIME
Even though time is weaved into our lives, it is one of the most difficult concepts to explain or to understand. Time has different meanings—in Religion, Physics, Philosophy and many other disciplines, time means different things. Yet, the measurement of time is fairly the same across all discipline.
Physicists consider time as the progression of events from the past to the present into the future. Time is not stagnant—it moves and as human beings, we have limited time on earth because death awaits us all.
Since death is inevitable, time is precious and any of it which is wasted cannot be restored. Yet, I used to spend my time on many things which were not fulfilling or worth it. In simple terms, I wasted a lot of my time on useless things and unworthy people.
I have calculated my remaining life in this world generously, as having about 40 years more left—which comes up to only 350,400 hours left. If I deduct the hours I will spend sleeping, then I am left with even far less. With this break down, every hour means a lot to me and I choose to use it judiciously on things that are important to me.
I’ve in the last 2 years come to appreciate time even more by my slogan “life is short, and time is very limited.” Therefore, I’ve been prioritising and using my time wisely to engage in the things I find worthy.
I started with social media: I stopped engaging with things and people that brought no joy or happiness to me. I ended all the back and forth arguments with people who do not know what they are talking about. I do not read or follow anyone I “hate” or believe is “stupid.”
Instead of wasting my time on social media and scrolling through a lot of pathetic posts and fake lifestyle display, I decided to read more, watch more documentaries, have regular phone or person-to-person conversations with those I believe are worthy of my time. And more importantly, I give myself a lot of my time—to just thinking about the world that I find myself.
A lot us waste our time on so many things which do not bring us any joy. Being able to define how you use your time by constantly reminding yourself that your time in this world is limited and as such should be spent with or on what’s valuable will help you make good use of your time.
Ask yourself this: what do you use your time in a day for? And is that a proper use of your time considering how limited time you have?
Don’t spend your time thinking about, reading or spying on people you claim to hate on social media. A fool even knows that is a waste of time.
We should all make a positive decision to place the deserving value on our time by using it in a way that merits its true value.
STREAMLINING WORK AND MONEY
Closely related to the above, spending a lot of my time chasing money by working is considered by me as an improper use of my time. In fact, I don’t think any smart’s person’s income should be directly proportional to the hours worked.
I know there are a lot more important things I want to do in life than to just work. We are not robots placed in this world to work until we are 65 years, retire and die the next 2 years.
However, money makes a lot of things happy. I’ve somehow always known this and therefore I started streamlining my time when it comes to work pretty early in my life, specifically when I was an undergraduate law student.
The pattern of having to work 8 to 12 hours a day for 5 or 6 days is something I do not consider a good use of my limited time. I hate it.
So, since my 20s, I’ve always been thinking about how to beat this aspect of the matrix, by having tools/systems to work for me—while I use my time for the things I really believe deserve it.
As a result of hard work and dedication, this has worked really well for me. Majority of my income is not dependent on the number of hours I work.
Currently, I can work 2 hours a day on my businesses and the income generated is something I can live on, with surplus to save. In the next 2 to 3 years, I want to be able to work only 3 hours a week—and be able to live on the income from this as well as save some. This is what I call retirement at 40 years.
To me, it’s absurd to spend near half of your time each day working or on work related matters. Work and money are the thieves of our time—robbing us of our desire to spend our time on the things which will bring us true happiness.
A smart person keeps track of his or her time, and is always on a constant search to finding a solution to limiting how the work-money system controls their time.
If you have no control over your time in relation to work, you must look into ways to make as much money as possible with little time spent. It’s called efficiency. Many of us are not time efficiently.
You can have plenty of money and plenty of free time at the same time if you work on achieving this.
For me, the dot com lifestyle offers me great value for my time. Probably, you should look into that too if you want to be in charge of your time—and therefore your life. It’s a conscious decision you have to make if you desire this.
READ ALSO: The Dot Com Lifestyle…Give Your Life that Deserving Experience
For the better part of our adult lives, many of us will work till we are 65 and some will even die working, with the intention to retire at 65 but may not make it. The painful truth is that we continue to trade our time for money and mostly, for peanuts.
Instead of living to work, a lot of us work to live—by giving all our time to work and not even having a minute to realize that we are human beings and we ought to treat ourselves as such.
Of course, no one can survive without working, except if you won the lottery in millions and even that, you will work to keep the money away from scroungers. But work must not define your whole existence, it must not take you away from the very important things that matter so much to you.
Spending time with family, friends and loved ones or travelling to see some of the distant places and being able to do what you want when you have the full strength is what the Dot Com Lifestyle or the ‘New Rich’ concept is all about. And you do all these while still getting paid.
READ ALSO: How Minimalism Can Help You Become Financially Stable
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