Priorities

Have you ever asked yourself how you spend the 24 hours of each day? It is kind of sobering if the answer is driven by an honest response. My oldest brother, for a short period of time, was time-management possessed. He kept a little pocket notebook into which he would enter how he spent every second of his day … that is until he calculated how much time he was wasting making all those little entries.

Tom Heyman wrote: “In an average lifetime, the average American spends 3 years in business meetings, 13 years watching TV, Spends $89,281 on food, consumes 109,354 pounds of food, Makes 1811 trips to McDonalds, Spends $6881 in vending machines, Eats 35,138 cookies and 1483 pounds of candy, Catches 304 colds, Is involved in 6 motor vehicle accidents, is hospitalized 8 times (men) or 12 times (women), Spends 24 years sleeping.” Now that is sobering.

In the little monthly devotional booklet, Our Daily Bread, the following was included: “Someone has calculated how a typical lifespan of 70 years is spent. Here is the estimate: Sleep - 23 years or 32.9%; Work - 16 years or 22.8%; TV - 8 years or 11.4%; Eating - 6 years or 8.6%; Travel – 6 years or 8.6%; Leisure - 4.5 years or 6.5%; Illness - 4 years or 5.7%; Dressing - 2 years or 2.8%; Religion - 0.5 years or 0.7% … Total 70 years for 100%.” This too is very sobering.

The thing that strikes me as interesting in both of these quotes is that family time is not listed. Playing with your children is not listed. Dating your spouse is not listed. Meditation is not listed. Reading a book is not listed. Doing for others is not listed … nor is flying a kite, walking on a beach, recycling our stuff, enjoying a sunset, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and lonely, searching for the lost, lifting up the downtrodden … well, I think you get my drift.

How we spend our precious moments of life can make for some interesting reading … as well as, a rather twisted set of priorities.

Quote for today: "Someone once asked Tom Landry why he had been so successful as a football coach. He said, 'In 1958, I did something everyone who has been successful must do, I determined my priorities for my life — God, family, and then football.'" Source unkown