Win the Seconds

Inspiration for today’s topic comes from Never Finished by David Goggins and conversations I had last night with my book club. Time is a construct of human society and is also a construct of how we go about our days. Sitting in class I remember telling myself I only had 30 minutes left in class, which was really two 15-minute intervals, which was really three sets of 5-minute periods, twice. Individuals seeking sobriety use days to count their overall journey but many find ways to break down each day into hours and minutes. How we use time shapes our lives. Every hour we have countless thoughts and actions. We use hours and minutes as the main elements of how we track time, but it is really the seconds that matter the most. Win the seconds, win your day, win your life.

Every action we take can be boiled down to a split-second decision of yes or no. Seemingly every thought leading to an action can be backtracked to this idea. These decisions do not occur in the hours or minutes, they occur in the seconds. These split-second choices shape who we are compared to who we want to be. Planning to wake up early and work out is a choice. When that alarm goes off and you are awake briefly, you are confronted with the black-and-white decision of getting up or going back to sleep. Going back to sleep is the easy decision, no one wants to leave the comforts of their bed. Getting up is the decision you want to make, but have to struggle against what is easy in order to do so. By winning the second, you can make the choice that is right for you. Another example is when you are debating eating healthy or ordering the large fries with the cheeseburger you have been craving. Eating unhealthy is the easy, welcoming decision. Staying strong and eating healthy is the hard decision. By taking this decision and bringing it down to the second, it is much easier to decide on the choice supporting who you want to become.

I believe winning the seconds is a mentality that can be applied to all walks of life. If you are on a run and are physically tired, the easy thing to do is to walk. The hard course of action is to merely slow down your pace but keep running. This is a decision you decide step by step or second by second. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, there are no examples of decisions I can come up with which deviate from the split-second option. By winning the seconds, you become more capable of transforming into the person you want to be. There are 86,400 seconds in a 24-hour day. Make the most of them.