Tag Archives: time

Stop Wasting Your Time!!

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Yesterday as I was walking down the hallway aimlessly during my two hour break, a new student approached me in Namm Hall and asked me to direct him to the Voorhees building. You can only imagine my demise thinking about how to instruct someone on the journey to Voorhees from the 6th floor in Namm! In my mind I thought, this poor soul has to walk those long blocks to the V-Building and has no idea what he’s getting himself into. At first I contemplated the best directions to give him so that he wouldn’t get lost. After a few seconds I realized there was no way I could direct him efficiently without the possibility of him getting lost, and on his first day at that.

My heart crumbled inside thinking that he would be lost in school, and it would be my fault. So I decided to walk down the stairs with him so that I could at least show him which direction to walk in. After exchanging our last few words, and me double checking that he was okay with the directions I gave him, we parted ways at the Main Entrance and I felt better that I helped him instead of brushing him off. It was at that moment I realized that I could be using my break between classes in a more efficient manner than just walking aimlessly until my next class. Instead of just chilling  I decided to put my free time to good use, even if that means giving someone directions to a specific part of the campus.

After that experience I walked back to the elevators in the Namm building so that I could proceed to my class on the tenth floor. While in the elevator I noticed that I had about a hour and a half of free time and I decided to use that time wisely. I walked down the hallway in search of an empty classroom to sit in, instead of having to sit on the floor in hallway. After a few minutes, to my surprise I found a room that wasn’t occupied,and then I got comfortable. I  used my break to start an assignment that was due for the following day. As time progressed, I noticed that in the same time span that I would have spent walking around bored during my break, I was getting work done that would benefit me in later parts of the day.

By the time class started I had already read a sufficient amount of my assigned literature for class, and I was able to move on with the rest of my assignment.  Once class was finished I left and made my way to meet my partner so that we could spend quality time together. Had I not completed my schoolwork during my break, I would’ve had to cut my date short and run home to do my work. However, since I took the initiative to manage my time in a way that would accommodate my personal needs, I was able to do my work and have fun at the same time.

My main point of sharing my experiences during the first day of class with you is to show you how easy it is to Stop Wasting Your Time! I know that it’s difficult to get back into the swing of things in the beginning of the semester. However, I promise you that learning to use your time wisely will benefit you greatly in the long run. All you have to do is buckle down and devote a certain amount of hours a day to your studies no matter how taxing it may be. Trust me I have days when I’d prefer to be watching Hero Academia, Empire, Power, This is Us or any of the various other shows that have held my interest seasons upon seasons. However, I have learned that the years we spend working hard in college will groom us for experiences in the outside world.

College is hard, but this semester and the semesters that follow will fly by, and you’ll be graduating sooner than you know it. So during this time, make school a major priority in life and don’t get distracted. Give Facebook, Snapchat, Youtube and Instagram a rest for a few hours, knock out your homework, and once you’ve completed your assignments go out and have some real fun. Balance your time so that you never miss an assignment, but you also have time to enjoy yourself. Just DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME, because once it’s gone you can never get it back.

Virtues from Motherhood: All things bloom in the spring

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If you’ve been outside in the last ten days you’ve noticed that the weather has begun to get warmer, trees are blooming and tulips are waking from their winter slumber. If you’re like me you’ve looked in the mirror and realized just how much you missed the warm breeze and sunshine, so I’ve made a pledge to not waste a moment of it. Earlier this month I went to the highline with Ava and my best friend, Mariah. Although I’ve been there before this was the first time I was there when the shops and food vendors were up there and I was pleasantly surprised at the variety and delightfulness of the treats.

After visiting the highline I started scavenging Facebook and twitter for other public parks or spaces that have vendors, like the ones in Prospect Park or Williamsburg. Before the weather gets to sweltering to tolerate I want to get lost in the small treasures of this city, with Ava, and show her all the city around her has to offer. I’ve posted about my love for wandering the city before but I want to give that to Ava as well because one day she might look for things right in her own backyard.

Sometimes in the haste and bustle of our every day lives we forget to stop and smell the flowers, admire the skyline or even taste a street cart treat. I’m on the cusp of turning 27 (next month) and as my 20’s near their close I want to start making memories that last, experiencing things I hadn’t before. Though I’m learning age is just a number, as is time, none of us are immune to father time and one day we won’t be so fortunate to be able to walk 20 city blocks on a whim or take the steps to the subway 2 at a time.

So in the meantime, I challenge you to stop and look around, look at the flowers, stop in a new coffee shop, get off the train a stop early and check out the mom and pop shops in the area or just treat yourself to a take out goodie.

Virtues from Motherhood: You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be

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Have you ever caught your reflection in a passing car or store window? Have you ever gotten lost in thought and wondered how you got where you stand today and think back to those pivotal moments you’re sure changed the course of events in your life? Yeah, me too. It’s crazy to think how quickly we made those choices in the heat of the moment and how big they impacted our lives and I often wonder why I’ve ended up here, am I doing this right? I spent a lot of time micro managing what I did that I forgot to stop and breathe, stop and realize we are exactly where we’re supposed to be at this moment. Sometimes years later we can look back and see why a friendship ended or why we were laid off from a job, because those things ending made room in our lives for bigger and better things.

Too often human beings spend so much of their time banging on closed doors, or weeping outside of them, that they lose the ability to see the colors on the road ahead and life becomes gray. In that gray corridor we tend to lose ourselves in a flurry of “what ifs” and “why me’s” and as hard as it is to do, we have to shut those little voices of doubt down. It isn’t easy, in fact the hardest thing we as human beings have to do is learn to mourn the loss of someone who is still alive, without loosing ourselves in the process. We have to make peace with the fact that everyone we love may not be for us and in the ever revolving sphere that is life, people sometimes go and do not return, and that is okay. When you catch sight of yourself in a store window, instead of noticing what’s missing, I challenge you to notice what’s gained.

Instead of looking down, look up and count the good, instead of saying something has taken you too long to finish credit yourself for finishing at all. Everyone’s clock is different, your 25 is not the same as your moms, your siblings or your best friend’s and to compare and contrast the lives and progress of totally different human beings is counter productive. Count things on a scale that makes sense to your life, you cannot weigh grains of rice on a scale meant to weigh an elephant. Understand that time moves at a pace that is right for you and nobody can tell you that it’s taking you too long to reach a goal or heal a wound, it is your life and as long as you’re trying, you’re progressing.

Virtues from Motherhood: Time is a slippery creature

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I talk about time often, how quickly it passes or how it doesn’t stop for any of us, but I come back to this idea because time and time again it’s proven to be so very true. When I was younger I saw my late 20s as this big gaping whole in the vortex of time that marked the end of life as I knew it. I didn’t think life happened after 30 or that you could still chase your goals that long. Well now a few years off of 30 I realize I may have missed the mark. Time is what you make of it, time is what you put into the cause and time is evasive and it hides from us even though we know its there and we feel it moving.

I think we’re all worried about running out of time and we’re not totally incorrect because time is not infinite but we need to stop watching the clock and start living the hours on it. The past decade of my life has been eventful to say the least and there are instances now where I wish I’d made better use of my time in the past, but I’m making up for that now.

Every single one of us gets the same amount of hours, the same hands on the clock, yet some of us seem to struggle with getting a handle on the days, months and years. Though we can’t touch time we can make it work for us, make it count, make it valuable. 2016 to me feels like a year of elusive and wasted hours, hours I spent preoccupied and distraught over things I knew how to overcome. So I challenge my readers this, what thing did you waste the most time on in 2016 and what will you do to fix it in 2017?

Virtues from Motherhood: Cherish the here and now

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When you think about time, you often think of how quickly it moves, or how there aren’t enough hours in the day. What we don’t tend to think about is the value that every small moment has in the big picture. As a mom, time is an uphill battle, it’s always escaping us and we’re always chasing it in return. I’ve learned over the past seven years that it matters less what it looks like and more what it is. Like many new moms I was self-conscious of my changed body and I spent so much time hiding from pictures or avoiding social events, and posting pictures because I was worried what I would look like in the eyes of others. What I learned from that however was that all I was doing was missing out on capturing and being part of milestone and hallmark moments of my daughter’s life. I also found that people, the right people anyway, were not looking at the materialistic things in the photo they were looking at the love present.

This realization was reaffirmed for me while scrolling through Facebook a few weeks ago. I came across a shared post by a woman named Tiffany Watkins who posted a pictures of herself in a bra and undies holding her young son Austyn. In the pictures, Austyn can be seen grabbing moms’ glasses, mimicking her faces, and laughing. His gleeful expression and love of his mom is obvious, but what’s more obvious is her love of him and love of the moment they’re sharing. I loved this post and shared it on my own page, and with Tiffany’s permission I’m sharing it here as well. I think we can all learn something from Tiffany’s post, mom or not, that you should celebrate love, moments, and memories free from fear of appearance or judgment of others.

The post has been shared quite a few times and other women applaud and find courage in her adorable post because in it she’s not just honest but she’s real. I encourage other women to share the love they’ve captured in pictures and share it without that, “oh no look at my legs” or “look at this” reaction that we’ve all had to a picture. In ten years, when you look back at that picture you were reluctant to share odds are you won’t remember that you thought your thighs were too big or your arms weren’t positioned right instead what you’ll remember is the happiness of that moment and the memory it left you with; you’ll remember happiness not self- judgment.

All in all, I don’t think anyone has ever taken a “perfect” picture, but we’ve all taken ones embroidered with love and happiness, and those things should be celebrated and cherished. I applaud Tiffany and I think her pictures are so simple yet mean so much. On Austyn’s first day of kindergarten she may come across those pictures, and not remember how she felt about her appearance that day but how small Austyn was then and all the memories surrounding that time. So my message to women who think twice about posting, POST IT! Share that love, that happiness and be proud of the life you’re living and the life you’ve built with the ones you love most. Don’t let anyone anywhere ever tell you otherwise because having an abundance of love in your life will always trump a “beach body”. Be rich in love not materialism.