TALES FROM THE BARSTOOL
By: Clint Lien

Life's "To Do" Lists

I figured most people had a "To Do List" for their lives. Mine's been the same for almost twenty years: write a great screenplay, learn to play a musical instrument and learn to speak Spanish. I haven't ticked off any of them yet. I need more time. Doesn't everybody?

"There's not enough hours in the day." How many times have you heard someone say that? How many times have you said it yourself?

"Dave", a friend of mine, is a drywall taper. He usually works ninety to a hundred hours a week and makes about $4,500 each month. His monthly payments include child support, a Ford Bronco and rent. He's a skilled journeyman, forty-five years old and he's broke. He lives in a rented house and shares the place with another guy - a cement man. He has to drive fifty minutes to work and home again everyday. I don't think the story of Dave the drywaller is that much of an anomaly. I think there are scores of Daves out there. Men and women who just don't have enough time in the day to do much more than make ends meet.

One day I asked him about his "list." What was on it and what would he do if he had more time? His answer shocked me. He didn't have a list and didn't figure he really needed any more time. He was getting everything done in the time he had. Things were just fine with Dave.

Now we come to my bar hound friends. They, like me, are always complaining about the lack of available hours. We sit there on our well- worn stools lamenting the cruel shortness of the day. The irony may be lost on them, but it's not lost on me. A day doesn't go by that Rory doesn't bring it up. Everyone else nods at the wisdom. Everyone else agrees. All we need is more time.

I wondered what Rory would do with more time. I've always assumed that most people are like me; they have a "three-shift" day. We get eight hours to work, eight hours for family, friends, and personal business, and finally eight hours to sleep.

So I pose the question to Rory, an attorney; what would he do with another eight hours? "Just suppose," I ask him, "that the master of time and space is bestowing upon you, Rory, attorney at law, one more shift in each day. What would you do?"

He's really jazzed at the question. "Man, what would I do?"

"Yeah," I say, "what would you do?"

"Well, let me tell you," he says.

And here's what Rory the lawyer would do with his extra shift: He'd sleep more. He'd work more. He'd exercise more. He'd sail more. He'd fish more and he'd do more things with his family. Sounded like he'd have a jam-packed eight-hour shift going. Still, what really got him excited was the extra time he'd have to work, so he could buy more things. Whatever rocks your boat, I think.

I decided to try someone else. "So," I ask Carey the waitress, "what would you do if you had an extra eight hours every day?"

That was two for two on sleeping and working.

So, it's back to me. What would I do with the bonus time? Well, with eight more hours I'd write more and exercise more, and I'd tackle that list of mine: Spanish lessons and guitar lessons. That's what I'd do.

Carey returned. "There's more that I'd do."

I got out my pad and pen.

"I'd learn to play the piano and take a painting course."

Rory would do more of what he already does. Carey, like me, would do more of what she does, but she'd also expand her list of things to do and add a few new things. All these things we say we want.

"But we don't get another eight hours. So we'll just keep falling behind until we die." Rory, ever the optimist, broke everyone's reverie. Obviously he was right. We would have to continue on with the same twenty-four hours we'd always had. The same twenty-four hours anyone has ever had. Ever. Michelangelo never got bonus hours in a day. Lance Armstrong, Martin Luther King, Steven Spielberg, and Bill Gates all got the same twenty-four hours. Makes you wonder.

I have another friend named Peter. Peter is one of the world's best Ironman triathletes. If you looked at his "to-do-in-life-list" you'd find it was surprisingly short: number one - be the best triathlete in the world. That would pretty much cover his list. Peter never complains that the days are too short or that he's tired - and his job is endlessly exhausting - much like my friend "Dave." Yet Pete and "Dave" are two of the most contented people I know.

I guess if I were to look at my list and scratch off two or three of the items, my days would seem a whole lot longer. After all, learning to speak Spanish has been on that list for almost fifteen years and all I can say right now is, "Hola, mi amigo. Dos cervezas, por favor." And after twenty-five years of false starts maybe it's time to admit I'm never going to learn all of "Stairway to Heaven" on my guitar.

If I were to have a list like Peter's - for instance, "Be a great writer," and that was all, then maybe I wouldn't feel guilty at the end of the day because I hadn't managed more than a passing effort at the other items. Freed up from all that guilt, maybe I'd have more energy to focus. Who knows, I might even become a great writer.

As a child of the seventies, I bought into the promise made by every advertiser promoting every new product; all of them, from microwaves to remotes controls to fax machines had one purpose-to save you time and make life easier. It never happened. Now it's 2003. I'm one of the lucky few who doesn't spend from dawn to dusk working like a mule - but most people do. So what happened to all that leisure time we were promised? Our computers, our cell phones, our instant messaging have also failed to buy us more time; most of us are falling into our beds at the end of the day, dead on our feet, then dragging our asses out of bed in the morning to do it all over again. Meanwhile, our "to do" lists are not getting done.

I wonder if Michelangelo dragged his ass out of bed in the morning. I wonder if he ever complained that he didn't have enough time in the day. Either way, I bet he had a short list.

Time, I think, is like money - expenditures rise to the income level very quickly. And, also like money, we can manage our time and make the most of it, or squander it on "stuff." We can invest it wisely, or watch it fly away. Unlike money, however, there's nothing we can do to get any more time. We're all given the same wallet full everyday. So when we don't have enough time in the day to do the things we want to do, it stands to reason that we need to eliminate some of the things on our list. Maybe we don't want to do them enough. Maybe they're just our way to rationalize all our squandered time; a way to justify why we're not doing what we really want to do.

Hey, that was easy. Problem solved. So now I just need to pull out that list and start cutting. I'll do that tomorrow when I have more time.

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