I have been working very hard for so many years right now that my sister has continously been reminding and hounding me through emails, text messages, and phone calls to rest, rest, rest, rest…
She forwarded me this email. One thing I noticed is the person did not have a cause in what he was doing.
Think about this…….
(written by Rod Nepomuceno)
IN what sense do I feel like I’m Superman? Well, it’s the way I have been living my profesional life the past 8 years.
Ever since I passed the bar, my life has moved at the speed of light. I worked and worked like there was no tomorrow. I felt smarter than a locomotive! I felt I could leap tall corporate ladders with a single bound!
There were times, when I was working in a law firm, where I would work the entire weekend in the office, typing away all throughout Saturday night, finishing Sunday afternoon and submitting the legal opinion to my boss’ house Sunday night.
Then work all throughout Monday morning, afternoon and all through the night, take a quick shower at 5 a.m. on Tuesday and go straight to a hearing. When I left the law firm, I took my already crazy schedule to
another level. I headed the corporate and legal affairs of a retail company, co-hosted a daily early morning TV show, called Wake Up Call, took up a masters degree course in business economics, and co-anchored the primetime news for Channel 9 — all at the same time!
My mom used to tell me I was killing myself. I didn’t realize it then but she was probably right.
There were several times when I found myself almost dozing off while driving back home from the news. If I hadn’t been offered a better paying job by my present employer, IMG, I would have probably ended up killing
myself! However, it didn’t stop there. Working for IMG was not a walk in the park either. As country manager, I was tasked to set up IMG’s Manila office here and believe it or not, I started off in bedroom-with a fax,
computer and a modem.
For a while I thought to myself-“Great! I could literally work in bed and take a snooze without ever worrying about a boss catching me!” What I didn’t realize was-I was a tougher boss on myself than any other boss
I ever had in the past.
I pushed myself to the limit in trying to prove myself in IMG, which has been successful in almost every market in which it has opened an office. I was certainly not going to let the IMG Manila office be the 1st IMG to
ever be closed down. So, going against all odds, and withstanding even the worst economic slump the Phils. ever experienced, I worked long hours-sending faxes at 3 a.m. in the morning,answering e-mails at
4a.m. and sleeping for 3 hours and going on ! marathon meetings the whole day. I tried to do everything by myself. Just like Superman, I wanted to take on the whole world!
But then came a turning point in my life. Three deaths in 1 year-an aunt, and 2 close friends-shook the wits out of me. These deaths really made me reflect a lot. It’s amazing and ironic, isn’t it? Death often makes us reflect on life.
I needed a break.
RECENTLY, I took a short trip to Boracay-and I brought along a book which I’ve never gotten to finish but was always on my to-do list-Tuesdays with Morrie. I had read the 1st 30 pages but could not quite get into it again and I figured this Boracay trip would be a perfect time to read it. It was perferct for me because the book talks about a dying man who makes his hardworking, ultra busy former student realize what life is all about.
The message of the book is something I’ve always known, but never quite practiced—at the end of the! day, it doesn’t matter what you get out of the world-what matters is what you give. And in the end, all we can give that’s lasting is love. Cliche? Yes, it is. But it’s so true and it can never be over-repeated. At one part of the book, Morrie (the dying man) talks about the problem that most professional people have-they are always in a hurry. He said that the problem in this world is that everyone seems to be in a hurry—for NOTHING. “Oh, I have to send this fax ASAP.”—“Man, I have to send this e-mail right away!”—“Wait, I can’t meet you for coffee, I have to finish this report by 5 p.m.” If you really think about it, there’s no compelling reason to do these things as if your very life depended on it.
SOMETIMES, things can wait. Unfortunately for a lot of people, they think otherwise. Myself included. When I was reading this part of the book, I remembered the line Lois Lane said to Clark Kent in Superman II when
he was going off in a rush —“WHAT’S YOUR HURRY, SUPERMAN?” That line kept on going over and over my head as I strolled along the white beaches of Boracay. Indeed, what’s the rush?
More often than not, we’re rushing because we put self-imposed deadlines on ourselves—deadlines that are NOT real deadlines-but rather just timeframes that we FORCIBLY pound on ourselves because we want to accomplish MUCH within the LIMITED time we have on our hands.
The weird thing is—-the more we rush, the more we feel pressed for time. It seems that the rate of increase of our “hustle and bustle” is directly proportional to the number of things that we need to do. The truth is, we really don’t need to do that much in such a limited time.
JOHN LENNON, the slain Beatle, had an interesting line in one of his songs entitled Beautiful Boy. The song is for his son, Sean, and it talks about how Lennon valued the time he was ! having with his son and how he treasured this precious gift from God. I have a favorite line in the song-“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” This is so true.
Oftentimes, we find ourselves so engrossed in setting meetings, rushing to conferences, drafting reports, meeting deadlines. Why? So we can make a living and have a good life!
But then, before you realize it, you’re hitting mid-life, and all you’ve ever done is run around like a headless chicken. John Lennon died at the young age of 40 and he accomplished much in his life. But to him, his
biggest accomplishment was not his numerous top 10 hits; it wasn’t his popularity or his sometimes crazy statements that stirred controversy worldwide…In the end, it was being able to spend quality time with his
son, seeing him grow, and simply enjoying the simple things in life with him.
While I will not canonize him, I think John Lennon died a very happy man. And for all of us, I think that’s the same way we’d like to “check out” for this world, too. But hey, it’s important to live happy too! And living
happy means enjoying what you do and savoring every minute of it-without the rush!
So for those who are ALWAYS in a rush—take it easy! Life is not all about sending out the most number of proposals or cutting the most number of deals.
The next time you find yourself in a daze with all the things you need to do, take a step back, and say “What’s your hurry, Superman?” Then prioritize what you need to do, and do whatever you can within the TIME that you have IN YOUR HANDS.
