I feel like I’m an expert at wasting time. I play a lot of video games, watch a lot of movies, and rack up a lot of screen time. I juggle several different hobbies, and each one has a thousand peripherals and accessories to spend time shopping for. And, of course, YouTube rabbit holes never cease to draw me in!
We’re going through John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry in connect group right now, and it is quite a convicting book about the unrelenting pace of life and its dangers to our spiritual health; as technology quickens, so do we, and it only gets easier to fill every minute with anything and everything! “Every yes is a thousand no’s,” as the author states. Whatever we decide to put our attention towards, we are therefore choosing to take away attention from something else.
A very easy example of this is working overtime in your career. Every hour you spend at work is an hour you can’t spend crafting a hobby, planning an adventure, hanging out with family, or getting good sleep. Another example: when you say yes to scrolling Instagram, you say no to quality time with your friends. When you say yes to turning on the TV, you say no to studying the Word of God. Because there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and we only live eighty-something years, we must be picky about how that time is spent. It is impossible to do everything there is to do.
Poet and rapper Jason Petty declares, “I guess I could say I’ve been through a divorce now - me and my phone are no longer married.” What are you saying no to right now? Are you okay that you’re saying yes to something else? Consider how you divide your attention this holiday season, as this is especially the time to recenter yourself on what matters most.