Time Bomb!

 

Time Bomb!

Many people think that the meaning of life is to be rich and have luxuries. It sounds like it would be the perfect lifestyle. I am from Mexico City, a big crowded city where people can find a little or a lot of everything. For a long time, I thought that being rich was the path to reach happiness. Now, that has changed. I have been far away from my country for one year and a few months. During this time, I have started to appreciate things that I wasn’t looking for before. Nowadays, I look at everything differently, and every time I consider that there are more important things in life. My priorities with my time are to spend it with the people that I love, studying what I like the most, and working in something that can give me joy and happiness. Unfortunately, since I moved to the U.S, I have lost my time management. I feel a lot of frustration and trapped.

Being far away from the people that I love has been hard. Now I have started to appreciate and enjoy to the maximum the time that I spend with them. Last year, I had a big life lesson. A friend that was very close to my family used to reach out to see us almost every week. We used to spend the weekends together playing dominos, listening to music or learning to play the piano or the guitar. Most weekends, we already had plans, so we prolongated the meetings. Since I moved to the U.S, haven’t seen each other again. One day I was talking with my mom and she gave me the bad news that he passed suddenly. I have learned that the way I manage my time is important and I have to stay close to people that love me and want to spend quality time with me. In this way, when they are gone for good, I would be happy that I spent all the time with them.

I have also learned that managing the time at school is important. Back in Mexico, I was studying aviation. One thing that I liked the most was that I was owner of my time. I had the freedom to choose what days and at what time I wanted to fly. This was a blessing for me because I was available to schedule all my activities in one day. I could fly in the morning, work some hours in the evening and hang out with friends at night. My favorite was giving myself vacation days to escape to the beach and do some surfing. I remember those days with so much love, and I wish I could make the same here in the U.S. Unfortunately, now I am attached to a schedule, and as I try to control my time it keeps escaping from me.

Additionally, for my work I also had the opportunity to manage my schedule. I had the advantage to choose my work days. I was a counselor at a camp company and my other job was to be an outdoor adventure guide. I loved to do these jobs. Being in the outdoors and nature, traveling through my country, and making fun activities and new friends, were my favorite activities. This was the way I liked to spend my time. Now I dream about having those days back. Since moved to the U.S, I feel that I lost my power to do whatever I want with my time. 

The truth is that I would love to have the time back in my hands, so I can feel free again. For me, having the ability to do anything with my time is like being rich or having a luxury. Instead of having billions of dollars, I have billions of seconds to spend with the people that I love the most. Instead of having millions expensive luxury cars, I have millions of minutes spent studying something I am passionate of. Instead of having thousands of dollars spent on clothes, I have thousands of hours working in something that brings me happiness and joy. Now I strongly believe that time is the most precious thing I can have in life. At the end, the memories that we build with our time are the only thing that we are taking with us to the other side.