Increasing the time I am living my own life

My rules for budgeting my 24 hours are simple. No lunch, no novels, little TV, a rare movie, few magazines, a quick pass through the newspaper. Thus I reduce those hours in which I am a consumer and a spectator and increase the time when I am living my own life.

– Dr. George Sheehan

Each Monday I write a post for a theme I call Motivation Monday, based off a quote from Dr. George Sheehan, especially from the book titled Dr. George Sheehan on Getting Fit & Feeling Great. The book includes three books: How To Feel Great 24 Hours A Day, Running and Being and This Running Life. I might also include quotes from other running gurus such as Jeff Galloway and John “The Penguin” Bingham, from time to time. I hope this will help motivate not only myself, but also you as we both start anew each week.

Today’s quote comes from the book How To Feel Great 24 Hours A Day, and a chapter titled “On Changing.” In  a section right before this quote, Sheehan explains how he eliminated a number of activities from his usual day in order to make room for running and writing, including lunch, movies and television. He also includes reading novels, but does say that he prefers classics, especially books by “great thinkers.”

In a section right after this quote, he says “we cannot add a new activity to our life without taking something else out,” adding that it isn’t easy to decide what is to be thrown out, because often we have to decide between good things, not good and bad.

So what do I need to eliminate to make room for my running and writing?

Lunch? Until I learn to cook myself a big breakfast every morning, this isn’t going to happen. Also when working at the library one Saturday a month, I need lunch to help me get through the rest of the day. Other times, I need it too to get through the rest of the day, because I usually don’t have the big breakfasts to which Sheehan subscribed. So no, I’m not eliminating lunch.

Movies and TV? My wife and I already have “given up” television and we don’t watch movies every night  (maybe once or twice a week, we have something from Netflix to watch). So no, I’m neither eliminating TV (since it’s already been eliminated) nor eliminating movies (since I don’t watch that many anyway and also because we have a movie night with a couple of neighbors that we’ve been enjoying the time to get together).

Reading novels? I must admit that I don’t have the attention span for reading that I once did. I only can read in small doses, which is why lately I’ve continued reading the stories of Sherlock Holmes. I also started out the year by reading graphic novels, which can be digested easily in small doses. That said, I just ordered a novel, Cutting Stone by Abraham Verghese, on the recommendations of a couple of “real life” friends and a few book bloggers with whom I’m acquainted. However, I don’t plan on gulping it down in one sitting, especially considering that it’s over 600 pages. So no, I’m not eliminating reading novels, although I’m not going to read them in large doses, because I’ve learned I can’t do that anymore.

So if not these places, then where?

I guess if I can think of one place that I could eliminate to make room for my running and my writing, and also my goal of getting up earlier each morning, would be to stop playing games on Facebook late into the night. It’s not that the games are intrinsically evil or that I’m saying I’ll give up playing them completely, but just that I need to stop playing after 11 p.m.

Well, as it’s almost 10:50 now as I write this, I think I need to go…so I can get my last 10 minutes of games in.

Later, y’all.