Felicia Soleil's 5 Philosophies For Moving on After Divorce: #3 Forego

As an attorney, and especially with my specialty in family law, time matters.  Residential time. Non-residential time.  Spousal maintenance time and the ending of that support really matters to some.  So, as a result, my friends have deemed me the keeper of important details regarding time.  A case in point came the other day when my 46-year old friend recently called me in a panic.  She had performed some detailed mathematical calculations and wanted to report that if she lived to age 86, she only had 350,000 hours left in her lifetime! 

To keep the conversation going, I did some more math for her and countered that she had, basically, 14,600 days of life remaining.  Since about one-third of that time would be spent sleeping, we shed another 117,000 hours.  That left her about 233,000 hours of waking life over the next 40 years.  

Let’s say another five hours a day are spent on the necessities of life:  Eating, preparing to eat, eliminating what was eaten, exercising off what was eaten, and grooming to hide or enhance the results of eating.  That shaves off another 73,000 hours.  Now we are left with only 160,000 hours to fill.  

If you are thinking as we were after this math exercise, it doesn’t seem like a lot of time, does it?

My friend worried aloud, “How will I do all the things I want to if that’s all I have left?” Forty years seem like a long time but 160,000 hours doesn’t feel that way. It’s especially true considering time seems to speed up with each passing year. Recently, I came across a quote that underscores this truth:

“Choose wisely how you want to spend each day because you are exchanging a day of your precious life for it.”

You don’t get a do-over once the day is done.  With that in mind, how can you change the way you spend your days?   Consider not just what you want to include in that day but also what you can forego.  We have to examine what can be eliminated if we are to make room for ways that add better value to those remaining hours.

Of course, we also need to eliminate the accompanying guilt that may come along with whatever we choose to forego.  Isn’t that often the bigger issue?  See my earlier blog on the power to forgive and forget.  

My challenge, to you:  Put yourself first
If you don’t save yourself, who will?  That’s right.  Who else will?  Not your spouse or partner, not your kids, not your mother, or even your best friends. Why?  Because you contribute to their comfort zones. You may forego things that waste your time, suck your soul, and don’t add to the purpose you have assigned to that day.  And, you may also find yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to forego responding to certain people in general.  Remember, it is in exchange for a precious day of your life.  

We know you fulfill your obligations to everyone else, first.  When are you going to fulfill the obligations you have to yourself?  What will you forego, in exchange for getting back a day of your life?  If you are ready to move on, and not simply move out of your marriage, I am here to help. Together, we can reduce and resolve conflict, and forego what doesn’t serve your bright future.  
 

Published on August 24, 2018