The Power of “Now”- Utilizing Our Newfound Time, Courtesy of COVID-19
At some point in time in our lives, we have all heard the cliché,
“Time is money, and money is time.”
As an “older,” full-time student, and working adult, that statement hits a little different than when I first heard it as a child. Time truly is one of, if not the, single-most precious commodity in this world. It is one of the things we can never buy, nor can we buy it back. Amidst the trying circumstances that life is throwing at all of us, that concept rings true even more so today.
2020 has been an eventful year for both myself and many people around the world, to say the least. Being only three months into the new year, I’ve witnessed potential threats to global security, a President underwent the impeachment process, a childhood hero of mine passing away (Rest in Paradise Bean, GiGi, and the 7 other lives lost in the accident), and the world being struck with a mean left-hook by the growing pandemic known as COVID-19 (A.K.A. the “Corona Virus”). Considering the year is only a quarter of the way done, I can’t help but ponder to myself,
“Damn, what’s next?”
While I’m not an avid basketball fan, I most certainly appreciate and respect the sport. I’m definitely not the fan that can name stats off the dome, like how many three-pointers James Harden averages a game or how many techs Boogie Cousins averages a season. But, I definitely tune-in to Washington Wizards games during my free time, witness Bradley Beal ball out (and lose), get snubbed by the All-Star committee, and have my heartbroken by the team every year. Essentially what I’m trying to get at is the fact that I love basketball, but don’t bring any of that basketball debate over on this side, because I will lose.
Basketball fan or not, you probably know who Kobe Bryant is. Kobe Bean Bryant? Kobe “Black Mamba” Bryant? Kobe “scored 81 points against the Raptors in 2006” Bryant? Kobe “Tore his achilles and still made the free throw” Bryant? Yeah, that Kobe Bryant. Don’t confuse me for a die-hard Kobe fan. I just truly admired how damn great he was.
Since I was of age to be able to remember, watching Kobe on TV was always a spectacle. MJ’s prime was before my time, so I always looked forward to watching the Black Mamba take the court. Outside of the neighborhood pickup games with friends, I never really played basketball competitively. But being able to watch Kobe play was always something that inspired me to be great in anything I did, also assuring me it was okay to overachieve. Like many people such as myself, the death of Kobe Bryant hit hard.
The passing of the great Kobe Bryant was definitely a shock to the entire world. News of his death seemed to come from nowhere and nobody was prepared for that announcement. Most sports fans could probably tell you exactly where they were at, and I can certainly recount everything that was going on when I discovered what had happened to Kobe, to a T.
January 26th, 2020. Sundays were always pretty routine for me. It always began with opening the gym I work at, updating some online powerlifting training work for my clients, vacuuming and mopping the floors, the usual. One thing was definitely made this particular Sunday less or more special than most: The 2020 NFL Pro Bowl was supposed to air at 3PM. While I was scrolling through the channels on my laptop in search of the NFL channel, I noticed something amongst the people of the internet. While simultaneously looking for the channel and scrolling through twitter on my phone, I see numerous tweets and retweets from various friends saying,
“No, not Kobe!”
“There’s no way it was Kobe”
“Can’t believe Kobe Bryant really died smh”
“This can’t be real. Mamba Forever”
I happened to stumble upon ESPN, only to be struck by the hard truth. SportsCenter’s headlines read,
“Kobe Bryant dies in helicopter crash at age 41.”
None of my super sports-loving co-workers or friends that I could talk to were around at the time . Flustered with emotion I ended up turning to the others at the front desk and yelling,
“Yooo! Kobe Bryant just DIED! What the hell is happening??”
Again, they weren’t super into sports, so I became a little uneasy on the inside being unable to express and share the grief with others. A mass wave of emotion swept over me internally. Within seconds of checking multiple sources confirming that Kobe no longer walked this earth, the first place my mind went to was,
“wow, this is real.”
As my brain continued to process how real the death of Bryant was, I also realized how real life is. The time we spend on this earth is real. The real fact that missed opportunities were a direct result of underutilized time. My subconsciousness crept into a dark place. I couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that a beautiful soul such as THE Kobe Bryant, legendary basketball player for the L.A. Lakers, well renowned philanthropist who founded the Mamba Sports Academy, Emmy Award winner for Dear Basketball, loving husband to Vanessa Bryant, and astounding “Girl Dad” to Natalia, GiGi, Bianka, and Capri Bryant, was no longer here; yet somebody like me, a 23 year old still in college, living at home, and working at a local gym, still is here.
At first, the tragic and sudden death of Kobe Bryant crushed me. Falling into a mental slump, I found myself acting on emotions. Those around me were unintentional collateral damage in more ways than one because I was upset. Each passing day felt like I was living in sadness, which began to reawaken numerous bad habits I had worked so hard to tuck away. Upon awakening my heart was heavy, and that feeling clung onto me through the entirety of my day until going to bed. It’s pretty dramatic, especially since I never knew Kobe personally. To me however, this was like witnessing your favorite super hero fall victim to the villain, but both in reality and real time. To say the least, I was down bad.
It took self-evaluation to pull myself out of that short-lived slump. I had to keep it real with myself and accept the raw truth that my poor habits only lead to self-inflicted decline of any and all progress I was making this new year, essentially wasting time and effort that I had put into myself.
I came to convincing myself that I have the power to pull myself out of this mental rut, along with the aid from close friends. It also became apparent to myself that I was going about handling Kobe’s death all wrong.
The reason he was such an amazing person and found the success that he had was not solely based on the fact that he was talented. Kobe knew the importance and power of time, and he allocated his time to what was important to him. This allowed him to make things happen and create the amazing legacy he left for all of us to cherish, all by simply pursuing his dreams and stopping at nothing to achieve them.
Despite being heartbroken by the loss of an idol, Kobe Bryant managed to plant the seeds to a new-founded motivation within myself from beyond the grave without even knowing him personally. That’s just how damn great he was. Through his life and death, he was able to leave a lasting impression on people that weren’t even a part of his life. Through grim circumstances, a quite affirming lesson was learned.
With the global spread of COVID-19, many of us are suffering the negative impacts that comes along with the pandemic. With the increase in positive-testing U.S. citizens, all levels of government are taking precautions in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus.
Most recently, non-essential businesses such as barbershops, fitness centers, and movie theaters in my state were forced to close for 30 days (As of 3/24/20). Since the gym I work for temporarily shutdown, I find myself out of work for the time being which puts a great strain on my finances. Fortunately I am blessed with parents who are willing and able to provide me with a roof over my head for that is a blessing I will never take for granted. However, not working and not making money definitely sucks. Not to mention I have asthma, so the combination of the being constantly paranoid while not making money sucks even more. Nevertheless, there is a light of hope amidst the darkness, similarly to the lesson learned by the passing of Kobe Bryant. This time presents an opportunity to be put some energy and focus towards something great.
Many of us find ourselves wanting to do something outside of our schedule, but end up not committing to it. Either we lose sight, motivation, or completely disregard taking any steps towards making that “something” happen. Whether big or small, most of us end up putting that “something” on the back-burners and ultimately say,
“I don’t have time for that right now.”
Projects we want to start. Books we want to read. Family we want to rekindle with. Hobbies we want to pick up. Those are just a few examples that scratch the surface of possible “stuff” that we could do, had we put the time towards it. We get so caught up in our everyday life that we make excuses and throw these ideas to the bottom of our to-do lists. Truth be told, we all have the time as long as we make the time, and that’s where people fall short.
We are all given the same 24 hours in a day. Yet, so many of us sleep in to the last minute before having to go to work on weekdays. Our free-time is spent binge watching the latest series in the evenings or playing video games. We stay up late partying at the local bars/nightclubs on the weekends, only to wakeup with a hangover, trying to recover, and not do anything the next day. Next thing we know, it’s Monday. Now we have to go to work again. Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a time and place to let loose and relax. I love doing all of those things. Shoot, I’m normally the one that ends up being the first to hit up the the boys to plan a night out.
However, for some of us, that’s all we end up doing with our given free time. For some of us, that cycle is routine. At some point in my not-so-long time of being able to legally go out to bars and clubs, that was me. The crazy weekends ended up making me fat, lazy, unhealthy, and I ended up just unhappy with myself. Now I don’t mean this in a way that I’m saying I’m above others, but I crave more in life than that cycle. I yearn to truly experience “life.” After some time, it dawned on me that falling into that trend weeks on end yielded no real benefits and was simply unfulfilling. To find what I was in pursuit of, required dedicating time to the right things.
Now that many of us have been “gifted” with some fresh time, there is room to pickup where we left off on these forgotten aspirations. Or, we could all take time to step out of our comfort zone and do something new, in an effort to expand our horizons.
Having an increased amount of new free-time, I try to make sure to allot the it into something proactive and productive. A week into self-isolation, I’ve gotten ahead on school work that isn’t due for another few weeks, spent more time outdoors (six feet away from others and with less than ten people at a time), made a LinkedIn (which you can find here, hit me with that connect), and decided to take on writing (Shout out to the boy Daylan). I also plan on finally teaching myself how to play the ukelele (will keep y’all updated in the near future). The list goes on, and the potential to either dial in on current tasks and ambitions is endless.
We all have the power to distribute and invest our time into both our goals and interests. A newly acquired goal of mine is to not only find success, whatever form it may be, but to do so through various channels. Along my journey through life, I aspire to create a lasting, positive influence on those who need it. It might not be to the same extent as a famous celebrity, but I wish to put in an equal amount of effort into doing so with the time I am given.
We never truly realize how precious our time on this earth is until it is compromised. To answer my initial question, there is no clear answer as to what is next to come. Tomorrow is never guaranteed, and that becomes more apparent with the rising international struggles of today. We don’t know what could come next or when it is our time is to go, and that’s just the raw truth. What we do have control of however, it was we do now.
Brick by brick, setting ourselves up now will build our roads to our own versions of “success.” “Success” isn’t limited to the end goal. All the little wins along the way are contributors as well, and ultimately end up piling up to THE big win that we are all seeking. It all starts with making time for what we truly want.
If after you read this and something sparks within you, I only ask of you one thing. Whatever is sitting on your mind at this very moment, whether it be a person you want to talk to, a goal you want to smash, a project you want get back to or start up, these are my words to you,
“Get. On. It. Now.”
Life is too short to not do something great with your time. With time being equally just as precious as money, why wait?
I know, this was a long one. Probably longer than it needed to be. I talk too much in person so this isn’t new to anybody who knows me personally. Being my first piece I feel like I had to slide in some insight on myself. Call it a pre-introduction. Emotion is my middle name, and I write with pure emotion from the heart.
Anyways, if you managed to navigate through this lengthy piece of my mind that I am putting out for the universe to see, then my overall message stands true.
You do have the time.
