5 Ways to
Waste the Next 10 Years
( and 5 Scriptures to Help You Live Them Well)
Nobody wants to waste ten minutes, much less ten years! But it’ s so easy to do if we aren’ t careful.
You’ re 30, blink and you’ re 40, and then suddenly you open your eyes to see that you’ re 50! When did that happen?! So, only a few more flutters of the eyelashes and you are a whopping 60 or 70 or 80 years old! * gasp *
Ten years can pass as easily as ten minutes if we aren’ t paying attention, so we need to think about what we want the coming decades to look like.
We can ask God to help us live out today and tomorrow well, but we can also determine what will‘ not’ help us live today, tomorrow, and the next ten years well.
There are some attitudes and actions we can avoid over the next ten minutes— over the next ten years— which will protect us from missing out on a meaningful day … a meaningful decade. Your life, my life, all our lives are way too important and valuable to waste them, but if for some odd reason you feel the need to squander your next decade, here are five ways to do it! [ big goofy grin ]
These are five choices and habits that will certainly help us waste the next ten years:
1. Look back— live in the past.
If you want to endure a long decade of regret, just focus on how things used to be. Look back to how much better you felt, how much thinner you were, and how much better it was when the kids were home or you had that job or you lived in that house. You get the idea.
If you focus on only what was, you will not live in what is. There is no better way to waste a good day than to pine away for long gone days. If you only focus on the past, always looking back, you will miss the growth and blessing and beauty of today. You do this for ten years and by the time the decade comes to a close, you will have glorified the past, missed the present and have no excitement for the future.
2. Look down— be negative.
If you choose to focus on what is wrong, all you will experience is what could be better or should be different. A negative spirit makes every day worse than it has to be and every burden heavier than it really is. Negativity is a time waster because it never adds to your life, joy or vitality. It only depletes you and drains your peace and wellness.
If you want to endure a long decade of regret, just focus on how things used to be.
SMG Solutions 19