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SuperSize Your Time!

There are times in all of our lives when we are obliged to wait; at doctors' offices, government offices, soccer practice - you name it! We can waste that time, or we can use it to a better advantage. One way of doing that is to SuperSize your time!

What do I mean by that? We all have challenges in our lives, or even small problems that crop up, little inconveniences that affect our lives. Start taking note of them. Not in a bad, "boo-hoo, ain't life never gonna git enny better?" way, but the way a scientist observes animal behaviors. Dispassionately, looking for patterns, isolating the problem, the present way of dealing with it, and where the "disconnect" occurs that keeps the problem in existence. When you see the present way of dealing with it, ask yourself how (not "if"!) this way can be changed in a small way to handle the disconnect. We begin with the present way of dealing with it because it's the present way for a reason. It works better than the second-best way. If we can, through changing something small, fix the places it doesn't work, then we have just come up with a better way! Ask yourself questions about the nature of the problem: if it's a problem with people, what would change if it were a problem among animals? Can this give you a clue about the better way to handle it? What if it were a math problem? What if one of the people were a different person? What would that person have to be like in order to change the dynamic? If one of the people were you, what would you have to change in yourself? Could you change this? What would you need to do, learn, know or experience? Is changing yourself in this way acceptable to you? Why or why not? Is it worth it to you to make the change?

The questions you ask will depend on the problem. A couple of words of advice: 1) Don't get too big. Global warming will not be solved as you wait for the orthodontist to check Johnny's braces. But, you might think of ways you can become more "green" in your own life, so as to contribute to the solution. 2) Don't get too far away from yourself. Spending your time solving other people's problems is a problem of its own of Biblical proportions: "Take the beam out of your own eye. . . " If you begin with YOU, you can end up solving other people's problems because, after all, we have much more in common than we have specific to ourselves. If you are tired of finding shopping carts stuck together seemingly for life, think of a way to make shopping carts that will release easily. It's for your convenience, but I'll bet you're not the only one it happens to! 3) Don't let this become work. This is the mind at play. Ideas are our playground, and if you come up with a million of them and use none, you are at least keeping your mind nimble and flexible, which will keep you young and thinking. There are no "you oughta's" in this pursuit; it is simply a way of expanding your horizons while you are sitting around, anyway.

The most exciting words in the world are "What if. . . " Take advantage of them to ask yourself what could change in your world, if you were to SuperSize your time!