Fitting Laser Eye Surgery into a hectic work schedule
How many times has someone said to you, “don’t worry, it will only take a minute”, for it to take around six hours, completely disrupt your meticulously planned out schedule, and after all is said and done, seem to set you back several days?
Working as part of a large team, this happens to me all the time — often several times a day. And it frustrates the hell out of me.
Time is limited and I want to get as much out of it as I can, so I plan everything I do out to the last millisecond. As you could probably imagine, when even the smallest of things get in the way of my plans, I throw a hissy fit and waste more timing wishing I could turn back the clock. In fact, I’m sure you know what I mean. You’re probably thinking right now about the thousand other things you could be doing instead of reading this lamenting article.
The thing is, anyone who’s part of the 9-5 or has to work in the digital world is more than likely hyperaware of how quickly time seems to be passing by. And as a result, are increasingly conscious about where it’s spent or how it’s used. If they aren’t, they risk their time being poured away along with their years of hard work and future dreams, for them never to return again. Ever.
It’s for this reason that time is an incredibly precious and unique commodity. The more we work, the less of it we have. And the less of it we have, the more we squander it being overprotective over what’s left.
We know this, of course, as the mid-life crisis. The stage in someone’s life that’s characterised by the pursuit of empty and foolhardy activities and goods, generally accompanied by the ill-treatment of close relations and a scarce and fearful attitude toward the passing of time. But the important thing to note here is that it’s a stage: most people get over it, burn out, and come to their senses within a matter of days, months, or years.
A midlife crisis is a result of living most of your life at one extreme of the scale. And as a result, sometimes it takes going to the other extreme to regain some balance. However, it’s not an inevitability, and the vast majority of the time the same effect can be achieved by lifting your foot off the gas and slowing down just enough to see things from a new, more coherent perspective.
You’ve got to spend a little time to make time
There’s a saying that if you say you don’t have time to meditate for an hour a day, then you need to meditate for two hours. It seems paradoxical at first, but once you do meditate and see that it brings so much more to your life than could ever be found in those hours otherwise, you realise the profundity of the statement.
And it’s a similar thing for anyone who says they don’t have time for Laser Eye Surgery — although you don’t need to do it twice. Once you invest a small amount of time now — two or three half days at most – and have the treatment, you’ll soon see how many hours it will save you putting in contacts, looking for your glasses, and messing around at the opticians. Not to mention at work due to the increase in productivity that comes with sharper, higher-quality vision.
But the greatest benefit of all, similarity to meditation, is not the number of hours it saves you, but the way in which it enables you to better experience every second of life. Whether you’ve spontaneously pulled over to watch a burning red sunset, or you’re enjoying a moment with the kids while rolling around in the mud, Laser Eye Surgery ensures you witness every single detail and appreciate the experience in its entirety.
When you’re able to get this much out of every moment in life, somehow that itchy feeling of time slipping through your fingers goes away. And, therefore, whenever the time comes that someone pulls you out of your routine and says, “don’t worry, this will only take a minute”, the reaction that’s more likely to come out of you is, “don’t worry, I have all the time in the world”.
