What Time Reveals

Everyone knows I am an extremely busy person, perceivably by choice.  I work many jobs, which currently can add up to over 70 hours of work in a week.  My free time is rare and it is precious, but I am quite capable of fitting it time for fun.  Sometimes I believe I appreciate my personal time more due to its scarcity.

My mother always told me, "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it."  This has proved very true, and I have often been that very individual that people would ask to even more.  A busy schedule fosters time management skills.  As for me, I know how to rearrange, renegotiate, reschedule or rethink plans so that all is still accomplished in a timely fashion.  It becomes a conceptual puzzle, a game for those who dare see it that way.  I enjoy the challenge.

Passion drives how I spend my time.  I work a lot so I make enough money for the other things I want in life.  I will also forsake many things, including sleep, in order to spend time at an event or with a friend or date.  Even when I am exhausted, I can draw on my passion to sustain me through something for which I want to be best.  There is time to crash afterwards.  I feed my relationships with passion and give time and energy freely where deserved.

Tardiness can even be planned for, but the busy person only offers a small allowance for lateness. I had to learn how to accept someone being late for a meeting because people kept doing it!  Accepting this fact took time, but now I build it into my schedule.  So now, I postpone my annoyance until a courteous amount of time has passed, and then I give myself permission to get anxious or annoyed.  There is almost always something I can get done in the time I am waiting for them.  I can only control my own actions, but continue to wish people showed respect to each other with punctuality more often.  How I wish that I could demand a doctor's note before I would excuse a late date!

No one wants to be waiting by the phone, or sitting alone at the restaurant, hoping their friend or partner really cares to show up for the relationship.  I am not a beggar for anyone's time.  If I care about you, I will call, I will email, I will show up for you and be all yours for a time.  Too often, my friends or my dates have made some plan with me that ends up discarded for something they forgot they had to do or for something "better."  I am not going to accept anyone who does not respect my time and keeps me as a low priority.  I will always prefer going out on my own to associating with people who cannot be counted on.  I deserve a man or a friend who goes out of their way to make time for me.

Thank you to all of you who already give time to those you care about...and for the rest of you, be warned that how you spend your time reveals your priorities.  If I am not your priority, then there is no way you will be mine.  Let's not waste each other's time.  Give the gift of time or honesty; walk away if you cannot honor your time commitments.