Time

I think the most important lesson in life is a confusing one. Life is short, but you have time. If you rush, you’ll miss it. It’s taken me almost 40 years to figure it out. I spent far too many years jumping from one thing to the next, afraid that if I spent too much time on one thing, I’ll never get everything I want done. But now my approach is different. I understand that life offers us limited time to accomplish what we want, but I also know that you need to slow down to see all the beauty around you, and that if you want to create something you can’t rush it.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, it was built over centuries. Billion and trillion dollar companies started from nothing before becoming the market dominating behemoths we know them as. Successful careers can start in the mailroom and span decades before reaching the c-suite. Works of art can take days, months, years, decades, and even centuries to complete, and even longer to receive recognition.

La Segrada Familia in Spain, which was started in 1882, and is still incomplete, offers a great example of this principle. It’s been over 100 years since it’s inception, and it is still not complete today. And yet nearly everyone that visits Barcelona goes to see it in its current unfinished form. It’s a reminder that beauty and craftsmanship are not just visible in a finished product, they are present in works in progress.

It’s easy to feel like time is running out and you need to pick up the pace if you’re ever going to accomplish anything. But it doesn’t have to be. There’s time to think, to observe, to plan, to enjoy, to acknowledge, to appreciate, to love, to support, and to embrace. And there is time to accomplish what you want. There is time for everything, but you have to make time for it.