for a very important date

I'm always running late these days. It's sort of frustrating and depressing and yet unavoidable at the same time. I don't know if it's because I have a lack of motivation to get my lazy butt moving, but there have been many times when I've been out of breath from speed-walking seven blocks across campus or rushing up virtually eight flights of stairs (though it's only up four floors) with rain boots on and croissant in hand. 

Honestly, I had a sort of disdain for people who were tardy in high school. How could you even think of waltzing in late every single day? It's disrespectful and it disturbs the class. Orchestra seniors would get really bad sometimes and that would annoy the crap out of me. And though we laughed when the same people kept coming into class late, there were just some days when I wanted to be like, GET your LIFE on TRACK.

But these days, I find myself consistently five minutes late for many, many things. And you might say, five measly minutes? But think about it. Five minutes is a very long time.

Try holding your breath five minutes. Try hugging someone for five minutes. Laughing for five minutes straight. Riding one of those mechanical bulls for five minutes. Brush your teeth for five minutes. Rallying a tennis ball back and forth with someone for five minutes. Playing one single note on a piano or violin for five minutes.

But those are all tests of endurance.

Now think about how much could be accomplished in five minutes. You could write a blog post. Confess your hopes and dreams and heartbreaks and joyous moments in love in a five minute song. Make a quick meal. Solve at least three ordinary differential equation problems (if you know what you're doing, of course.) Do a quick titration. Have a short and sweet phone conversation with an old friend. Pray.

So in those five minutes that I am consistently late, someone else in this world is using those five minutes to do something productive or beautiful or amazing.

Now apply that to a whole 24 hours. There's that statement about how like Gandhi and Bill Gates and Einstein and etc all had 24 hours in one day just like any other human being, but they achieved so much more than that average human being. How? Well, they took advantage of every minute they were given in pursuit of a passion.

So maybe I may not be all that passionate about going to my meetings or waking up for breakfast, but I think it's important that I just live every single day with passion. 

And maybe I'll get a date I'll actually want to keep. (Ha.)