Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

While racing through the day from event to event, add five minutes to an event. During those five minutes, do something wonderful for someone else who is at the same event.

Most of the people I know are busy. Most of the people I know are so busy that they just get by everyday. There is day is:

1. Wake
2. Run from place to place for 16 or 18 hours
3. Go to bed
4. Repeat steps 1. through 3.

Step 2. is a series of events. Maybe there is a meeting; maybe there is an hour in the grocery store, and maybe it is an hour of kids at soccer practice or ballet or music lessons or homework. Every event consumes a period of time.

Here is how to change the world:

Add five minutes to that event’s period of time. In those five minutes, do something wonderful for someone who is also at the event.

Some ideas:

• Hold someone’s baby while they sit and relax.
• Help someone else’s son take off his soccer cleats and socks and shin guards and have a drink of water.
• Give a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to someone else’s kid who looks pale and low on blood sugar.
• Pour a cup of coffee from your thermos (that you made just for this) and give it to the music teacher.
• Shave five minutes from your kid’s lesson so the teacher has five minutes to sit and sip coffee.

I could go on with the list. I trust that you understand the concept and the five minutes.

I know the math doesn’t work. If you spend an extra five minutes of each hour, after 12 hours you have missed an entire hour. You only have 11 hours and not 12 or 12 hours and not 13 or something like that. I understand that. I am pretty good at math.

Nevertheless, those five minutes do fit into the day. I have tested this idea, and it works.