Using Time Wisely

Presently our nation faces one of the largest challenges it has seen in the past 100 years. COVID-19 has not only affected the health of a substantial number of people, it has also hit everyone of us directly through the government mandated social distancing and quarantines.

Make no mistake, it is normal to become anxious and fearful of what lies ahead during such troubling times. Many of us Americans are sequestered in our homes, not working, and with too much time on our hands. Based on one’s own mindset, time can be either an enemy or a friend. For example, when someone is waiting to hear back from the doctor about whether they tested positive for cancer, every second can be a brutal eternity. On the other hand, when we spend time doing something that we really enjoy or in the company of someone we truly love, seconds can be blissfully fleeting.

In both cases time is still time. It is what we fill it with and how we perceive it that allows time to effect us either positively or negatively.

So how can we take the over abundance of time we now have on our hands and turn it into a positive?

Take advantage of it and use it wisely!

By using our time wisely, we can change a challenge into an opportunity. In other words we take time and use it to our advantage, for our benefit and use it to serve our purposes. How can we do this you may ask? Here are a few examples:

• Finish that home project you’ve been continually putting off
• Dive into that book you’ve been meaning to read
• If you normally spend a lot of time at work, now you have the opportunity to spend time with your family
• Improve yourself physically (set goals, recommit to your diet, and exercise daily)

For those of us who are martial artists, setting and achieving goals incrementally should be a normal part of our lives. How would you respond if all of a sudden you were given one to three weeks to focus on your martial arts training with very few distractions? Would you make a plan to improve your strength, speed, and flexibility? Would you pick one of your forms or techniques which [you know] you are weak at, and put in some solid repetitions each day? Would you practice to improve your footwork?

Or would you look at the amount of time you have on your hands and set up a solid personal training plan to accomplish all of the above? That would definitely be a wise use of your time!

Not to mention that the best way to combat the mental challenges of stress and anxiety is to challenge yourself physically.

Take this opportunity, seize the moment, because in the next few weeks when life g back to normal, this free time will be gone. Use this time and use it wisely.