How to Stop Wasting Time (and more)

Eye-Opening Moments are real-life stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. In this episode you will hear about How to Stop Wasting Time and Only She Understood.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode #99 of Eye-Opening Moments where you’ll hear real-life stories of adversity, encounters, and perspectives intertwined. They are moments that can lift your spirits, give you some food for thought, or move you. For the introspective mind that likes to reflect, discover, and find solutions or meaning in a complex life, this is for you. I’m your host Emily Kay Tan. In this episode, you will hear about How to Stop Wasting Time and Only She Understood.

How to Stop Wasting Time
With a full-time job, groceries to buy, errands to run, bills to pay, and household chores, how does anyone find time to do anything other than relax or watch some show or movie? For those who have family obligations, I don't know how they manage to fit in some rest time. Then I found a simple short story demonstrating how we waste time. The visualization of the jar with rocks and sand made it clear. I shifted from wasting more time to less time and got more done on my bucket list or dream list.

For too many years, I worked many hours hard at work. When there was any free time, I spent it on chores, errands, paperwork, and socializing with friends or relatives. I sometimes traveled when there was vacation time. Sandwiched in and between work and play would be interruptions, dramas, issues, or problems that needed to be solved. That sounded like the gist of life. There wasn't much, if any, time left for enjoying hobbies or realizing dreams.

I pictured one part of the simple short story. A professor asked students to put sand in a big jar and then put large rocks in them. He said the sand represented all the time we spent doing the little things before the big things, which were represented by rocks. An abstract concept of how we used time was made concrete with a jar of sand and rocks.

For ten years as a teenager to my mid-twenties, I spent much time attending school and working full-time. Learning and earning degrees were vital to me, and I also needed to work to pay for my education, so I felt the need to do both at once. I don't regret what I did, but upon reflection, I paid little attention to nurturing relationships and learning to develop more positive connections. Relationships were important to me, but I didn't spend much time on them. I had that rock in my jar of sand, but I could barely squeeze it in. 

When I began my career, it seemed to occupy all my time. Ten to twenty-plus years later, it was still a priority. I loved what I did and saw nothing wrong with spending most of my time on it. I was lucky to have enjoyed a long career doing what I loved.

It wasn't until I began doing work I did not enjoy that I paid more attention to priorities. Doing work I did not want, I call it a job. I no longer had a career; I had a job to pay the bills. After enjoying over twenty years of a career and an adventure with my stint in business, having a job only to pay the bills was hard to swallow. However, I began to see the professor asking students to do a second task in the story of rock and sand.

The professor asked students to put the big rocks in the jar first. After placing the rocks, the students were to put the sand in the jar. Imagining this scene, I saw how the sand could fit in the big rocks' little spaces, cracks, and crevasses. It seemed easier to fit the sand in once the rocks were there first. With the rocks as priorities, the professor suggested that if we did those first, it would be easier to fit in the other things that we needed to do or that there was space for the other things like the sand. The image of the jar and the sequence in which to do things were apparent.

Out of a career, I had a job. Not enjoying the eight to nine hours I spent at work, I suddenly felt like I was wasting a lot of time or using up a lot of time doing what I didn't like. I didn't want to waste time. Time is too precious. Once it is gone, I can't get it back. It is too valuable to waste. The older I get, the more urgent I find it is to make better use of my time because my time will run out. I had to think of what to do next.

I felt the need to do things I enjoyed. I began thinking of my long-lost bucket list and dream list. I started typing the lists. The feeling of joy began creeping in. I began identifying my big rocks and how I would make the time to make them happen while still working full-time. Tickled to do what would make me happy, motivation appeared to help me begin checking off things on my dream list and bucket list.

One dream was to become a published author. I couldn't believe I had spent more than ten years thinking about it and doing nothing about it. Naming this as one of my rocks, I published a book within a year. Work became easier to bear because I was doing something I always wanted to do when I wasn't working. Before I knew it, I wrote three more books the following year and published them all while working full-time at a job! Check, one dream realized.

One rock at a time, my dreams become fulfilled. All the sand of other things gets done too. Most importantly, with priorities clarified and done first, all the other little things get done too. When you want to stop wasting precious time, think of the jar of rock and sand and which ones you are putting in first. A fulfilled life is crucial to take the time to place the rocks first.

Only She Understood
Grandma Betsy, my father's mother, raised me before age five. I only know this fact because Uncle Sheldon, my father's brother, told me. I can't remember anything about life before I was five. I couldn't say what I felt because I had no memories.

Well into my twenties, I was at Uncle Sheldon's house to borrow the use of one of his computers. I was sitting at the computer trying to perfect a chart I was designing to put into my Master's thesis. I was not computer savvy and was learning the ropes as I went. I had been sitting there for hours working on the chart. Then Uncle Sheldon walked by and made a comment. 

"You are so meticulous at what you do. It's like when you were one year old in the back of our house. Grandma Betsy and I watched you move a chair. You moved and moved it like it had to be set in a perfect spot on the cement. You kept looking at it to see if you set it right. Grandma Betsy and I were amused to see you moving the chair like it needed to be put a certain way all by itself with nothing around it. It was so funny, don't you remember?" asked Uncle Sheldon. In a soft monotone, I said, "No, I don't remember." "But you were working on it for so long like the chair had to be perfectly placed, don't you remember?" repeated Uncle Sheldon. Again, I said no. With no recollection, I felt nothing.

When Uncle Sheldon mentioned that I was living with them before I was five, the adult me wondered why I wasn't living with my parents before I was five, but I never thought to ask. I became more disturbed because I couldn't remember the chair incident, and I lived with Grandma Betsy before I was five.

Though it disturbed me, I dropped it from my thoughts. I considered it something that shouldn't be surprising to me. After all, when I was five, Mom sent me to live with Grandma Sandy, her mother, who lived in another state. Since two sets of grandparents raised me, I thought I was unwanted and unloved by my parents. 

While it may seem puzzling that I didn't ask questions about life before five, I believe I trapped myself in a place that said it must have been so horrible that I erased it from my memory. And I thought I was probably safer, not knowing; my memory loss was probably my protection. 

Though Grandma Sandy (Mom's mom) told me I was with her to help Mom take care of one of her kids, I didn't believe it. Because I assumed I knew, I didn't ask. I thought I knew the truth: Mom and Dad didn't want me. I probably also thought I was with Grandma Betsy (Dad's Mom) before age five because my parents didn't want me. I assumed it and lived like it was a fact that didn't need questioning.

Everybody on my mom's side seemed to dislike Grandma Betsy. It was most likely because they felt she was unkind to my mom. Too often, you hear how horrible a mother-in-law could be, and I guess my mom had one of those. I know there was always tension and distance between my mother's and father's families. I never knew and never thought to ask what the problems were. I only knew, as a child, I got caught in the crossfires of it. Mom's side of the family told me to stay away from my father's side of the family, and it was no big deal since they didn't live nearby. 

After I was five, my visits to Grandma Betsy were far and few. I only had the chance to visit her once a year because Grandma Sandy, Mom's mom, knew a grandmother's love and asked me to see Grandma Betsy when we came to be in the same town.

It didn't seem like Grandma Betsy and I had much of a relationship other than one between granddaughter and grandmother. We didn't have a good or bad connection. The closest I got to her was when she became gravely ill. She had moved to the same city as me because her son, Uncle Sheldon, was there, and he would take care of her. I could take a train and visit her in less than an hour.

As a grown woman, I visited Grandma Betsy and my uncle when she was sick. I was satisfied and happy with my career as an elementary school teacher. Fulfilled that I could support myself without worries, I lived reasonably comfortably. With enough money, I had the freedom to visit Grandma Betsy anytime. We didn't talk much when I saw her because she often lay in bed. She was frail. She lost an extreme amount of weight and lost most of her hair. I heard her cancer was terminal, and she had less than a year to live. During this time, I got to know her a little bit.  

I didn't know Grandma Betsy by conversation as she didn't speak much. I think she was too weak and not feeling well, but I could feel her appreciation that I visited her almost weekly. It made me want to see her more. I just sat with her as she laid in bed. I sat there for hours, keeping her company while my uncle worked in his home office. She would reach out to hold my hand. It should be the other way around, but she reached out to me. I just held her hand back. I didn't know what to say to her. That seemed to be the gist of our relationship; there wasn't much talking, but there was a bond.

When she was not so weak, I guess early on in her illness, Grandma Betsy could walk by me and very briefly say, "Don't mind your mother; what she says, that is how she is." I don't remember what my uncle said that Mom said, but Grandma Betsy must have seen my facial reaction, which I was sure was subtle to show any feelings. But she saw me, and she knew I was hurt. Grandma Betsy didn't explain my mother's words or behavior (Mom wasn't there). That was all she said, but at that moment, I knew Grandma Betsy understood something no one else knew.

I lived with her before I was five, so she knew something about my family history that I didn't know. She knew I was the black sheep of my family. I never understood why. She knew that Mom treated me differently and negatively from all my siblings. She knew that I hardly spent any time living with Mom and Dad while my siblings spent most of their lives with them. Yet I was the one unliked; I don't know why. Grandma Betsy's short comment told me she knew it was not all in my imagination and comforted me that a family member understood my emotional pain and knew how Mom and Dad treated me.

As Grandma Betsy's health deteriorated and she was near death, Mom and Dad came to visit. My siblings came to visit. My aunt, my father's sister, also came to visit. Everyone flew in to see Grandma as we knew the end was near. My parents didn't seem sad. They didn't look sad. They looked like they were doing what they were supposed to do. Only my older sister, my father's sister, and my father's brother, my uncle, were crying and showed any sadness.

My father's sister, Aunt Jessie, cried while she sat with Grandma Betsy. Grandma Betsy was not crying. She just laid there so fragile and sad-looking. I didn't know if Grandma Betsy had all her senses or was alert enough to notice everyone visiting. Somehow, from the corner of her eye, she saw me. She told her daughter to leave the room and that she needed me. This time, Grandma Betsy directly spoke to me. She said, "I told them to go out and that I needed you. Don't mind them. Please don't pay attention to them not being nice to you or ignoring you like you are not important; you are important. She took my hand and said, "I need you; you matter."

Suddenly, I felt Grandma Betsy knew me all along. She was there when I was a toddler; she must have known that early in life, Mom ignored me. And Grandma Betsy was there to take care of me.

Despite family tensions and Mom's side of the family loathing Grandma Betsy, Grandma Betsy was kind to me. We weren't talkative, but her silent connection with me touched me. She mattered to me, too.

Grandma Betsy soon passed away. I don't think she expressed everything she might have wanted to all the family members, but I know she was a very observant, wise, and perceptive woman. Even on her deathbed, Grandma Betsy saw me, understood me, and I thought I was good at hiding my feelings and putting up a good front of strength. Her understanding was comforting.

Without many words, but with a bond, Grandma Betsy let me know that she understood my pain with family relations and that I was not to let it rule me because I am important. Lesson learned, don't let anyone make you feel like you don't matter, and don't let anyone take away your importance. I hope Grandma Betsy is resting peacefully and smiling down at me because I got her message now.

Key Takeaways: Though we all waste time at one moment or another, visualizing a jar of sand and rock can help us prioritize and move into action. By putting the rocks and priorities first, we will get the important things done. By placing the sand in second, we can more easily fit in all the other things that need to be done.

Though I was the family's black sheep, Grandma Betsy understood my pain, and it was comforting to know somebody understood.

Next week, you will hear two new real-life stories called My Dash and Ambiance Matters. If you enjoyed this episode of Eye-Opening Moments, please share it with others, support the show by clicking on the link in the description, or go to www.inspiremereads.com and leave a message. Thank you for listening!