A human being, on average, lives up to 70 years.
That’s roughly 2.21 billion seconds (2,207,520,000 s).
How urgent does 33 seconds now feel?
It can be exigent if you happen to be Grace in Mission Impossible, and Ethan Hunt needs you to flip the disk in the blink of an eye to have “The Entity” be trapped forever and save humanity from an AI gone rogue.
But you get the point…
33 seconds is trivial, insignificant for almost all of us all the time.
And yet…
Today, I saw a gentleman who waited patiently for 67 seconds at a road signal, caved in to the urge to break it at 33 seconds before it turned green.
I’m sure he wasn’t from the IMF. And he had no mission entrusted to him (should he choose to accept it) at Kanakapura Road!
I see people jumping signals every day. No big deal in Bangalore.
But today, when that person vroomed his two-wheeler and straight-up banged a mini goods carrier, and the mayhem that ensued, that’s when the 33 seconds really stood out.
…
I’ve often been asked: “What do better decisions look like?”
Somehow, we perceive good or better decisions as those rare moments when our lives take a proverbial turn in the right direction.
But better decisions are deceptively simple and hidden in plain sight for anyone to make in their daily lives.
It’s as simple as choosing to wait another 33 seconds and not let our lives take the unnecessary turn in the wrong direction.
🍪 Fortune Cookie:
“Chaos moves you faster. Clarity moves you forward.”
One of the skills in Eibira (a Mindful Productivity tool coming soon… sorry, coming when it’s ready…) is building mantras to help you ground yourself and gain clarity.
One such mantra that I repeat every single time I touch the steering wheel of my car is:
“Nikhil, you are driving on a roadway, not a racetrack.”
This simple affirmation goes a long way in helping me keep my sanity and letting the hundreds of IMF agents on Bangalore roads have their right of way to fulfil their mission.
…
Remember…
Better decisions are deceptively simple.
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Nikhil Kabadi 