Where does the time go?

"Be wise in the use of time. The question in life is not how much time do we have. The question is what shall we do with it." ---author, Anna Robertson Brown

One of Aesop's most famous fables is about an encounter between a grasshopper and some ants. All summer long the ants had been toiling away, saving up grain for the long winter. All the while the grasshopper merrily--yet foolishly--squandered his time without a care in the world, without making any provisions for the cold season to come. When winter came, the grasshopper found himself starving and begged the ants for food. They replied, "If you were foolish enough to sing all summer, you must dance supper-less to bed in the winter."

Where does the time go? Every Monday morning I get out of bed, excited about the prospect of a fresh week stretching ahead of me and I think of all the things I'm going to accomplish by Friday. Somehow Monday gets away from me and it's Tuesday and I'm thinking of how I need to make up for wasting yesterday.

I am amazed every time I go to the library and read the new releases. There are invariably three new Heather Graham Bell's, two James Patterson, two more Karen Kingsbury, and a Debbie Macomber. How do some of these prolific writers keep pumping out the books? You might say they are simply repackaging the same formula over and over. It may seem that way with some, but most of them are incredibly talented and disciplined individuals.

More so than me.

If you aren't accomplishing as much as you'd like to in a week, ask yourself how you spend your free time. What free time? you may ask. Okay, I see your point. We're all busy. But we find time for what's really important to us.

You may have no aspirations for writing the next New York Times bestseller. You may just be trying to find time to enjoy a date night with your husband. Examine your day. See where you are frittering time and where you may be able to delegate little jobs or say no to constant requests by family and loved ones.

Starting at midnight, we will be given 168 hours wrapped up as a brand new week to do with whatever we choose. At the end of your 168 hours, what will you have to look back on? I might just have written that new bestseller. Or at least the first chapter.

Happy Monday.