Time
You have a million pieces of bubblegum — how many pieces can you eat each day to get to zero? Would you even try? That’s a lot of gum. Even if it was my favorite piece of gum, I’d try to bargain some of it for other things because I have so much. Now, what if I told you these were the last million pieces of bubblegum? Would that matter? It’s not like it’s gold, so personally, I wouldn’t care much.
Let’s fast forward to when you have a hundred thousand pieces of bubblegum left — do you care now? No? It’s still a lot. How about when it’s ten thousand or a thousand? I imagine I’d start panicking when it’s hundred or even ten pieces left — what a journey that would be…now imagine if I told you that you’d die once that number hits zero, you’d probably lock them up in a vault and hold onto those last pieces for dear life — even if you had people ready to buy them for lots of money.
This is my VERY loose interpretation of time, we don’t care about it when we’re young because there’s just SO MUCH of it — but when it comes down to the wire, we shit our pants. Would you even consider opening up a bubblegum factory when you had the million pieces? Most people (me included) neglect their health until time runs out, the smart thing would be to start that bubblegum factory when you have more so you get better at running the facility, just like your body. A bubblegum company running for ten years has a better chance of being successful than a pop up shop that opened up yesterday (but still a better chance than never opening at all).
When time runs out, what will you do? Will you smile thinking about the journey or will you be scared thinking about the end? Ultimately, most of us won’t know because we’re alive and kicking, but all we can to is learn to value our time. If you’re unhappy now, chances are you haven’t discovered your true passion in life and things that make you happy, keep exploring and stop eating and trading that bubblegum, because when it runs out, it will be too late.
