Time.

   I don't think anyone would argue that the most important thing in life is time. Once it's gone, you can't get it back. No matter how much money you have, you can't buy more. The clock never stops ticking. And when I look around (I can be guilty of it too) it seems like that it is the thing we are wasting most.
   You will never be where you are right now, ever again. Your children will never be the same age, ever again. They will never have their terrible two's, ever again. (My daughter) I could go on forever, but you get my point. Our culture has became obsessed with reality TV, facebook, Twitter, and plenty of other "technological advances" that take us further and further away from human interaction and communication. Think about the philosophy or definition of reality TV, you are watching other people live their lives. Well what happens when you watch other people live their lives? You miss out on living your own!
   It's common place for me to see couples at restaurants checking or scrolling through their phone while at dinner together, at the same time! Why even go to dinner with each other? Albert Einstein once said "I Fear the Day That Technology Will Surpass Our Human Interaction.The world will have a generation of idiots." Well guess what? That day is here.
   IF time is the most important thing on this planet, than it should be the thing least wasted right? All those TV hours, all those phone and computer hours. What are you missing in those hours? Are you missing a tea party with your daughter? A laugh or smile from your spouse? Catch with you son? Once those opportunities pass they are gone forever. If you spend 6 hours a day on your phone or watching TV that is 1/4 of your day. If you live to 80, that is 20 years of your life! Hopefully not 20 years of watching the Kardashians.
   Live everyday like it is your last, be in the present. Jim Parker came up with this acronym PTC. It stands for Present Time Consciousness. It means being in the moment, paying complete attention to who you are with. We all know the people who, when you are talking to them, you can tell they are not hearing a word you are saying. They are thinking of what they are going to say next. Then when you speak to a really good listener, it's almost strange, they never lose eye contact, completely in to what you are saying. Listening has became a lost art. I recently had a patient while I was taking their history on their first visit, they were checking their phone the whole time, and taking a few moments to answer my questions, while they were still looking at their phone. I stopped my questions, and waited in silence until the phone was put away, they got the point. But what kind of message does that say to someone?
   One thing I use, and I think it is very useful, when trying to practice PTC is to practice mental photographs. I use this with my family a lot. When my daughter is playing at the park, it is very easy to pull out my phone and see what is going on in the Facebook world. To avoid that, I take mental photographs, still frames of her going down the slide, running through the bark. We will never be in this moment again. I encourage you to eliminate or reduce distractions in your life. Things that are distracting you from life itself. Don't let this time be wasted.

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