Are you spinning your wheels or doing what truly matters?

The Power of a Reality Check

Picture this: It's a boring, rainy Monday at your office in London. The kind of day where you just stare at the rain hitting the window. But then, suddenly and completely unexpectedly - fantastic news are coming. You find out you've won a super trip to Barcelona for the weekend! Your flight and nights at a four-star hotel are covered, and additionally, you receive two hundred euros in pocket money. You're so excited because you've never been there before. You start thinking about lying on a sunny beach, even though it's still raining outside your office.

But there's a small problem. When you check the trip details, you realize there's just one day to really experience Barcelona. You leave late on Friday night and come back early on Sunday morning. That's not a lot of time to see all the cool things in the city, like the famous attractions and catch a match at FC Barcelona's stadium that you've always dreamed of. You've got to think hard about what you really want to see.

You don't want to rush around the city, trying to see everything super fast. You'd rather take your time and enjoy a few special things. You love Spanish food, so you definitely want to have a long, yummy lunch at a really good Spanish restaurant. But that certainly means you can't see everything. The Sagrada Familia, the Gothic Quarter, La Rambla, Park Güell, or Camp Nou Stadium - some of these attractions will have to "wait" for another time.

Making these choices can be hard. There's just not enough time to do everything, no matter how much you want to. Even if you plan really well, you can't see it all in one day. You have to pick and choose what's most important to you.

Now, let's assume that the same situation happens to your friend - just like you, he will have the opportunity to spend one day in Barcelona. He has always been fond of art and cannot imagine being in this city without visiting the Picasso Museum or MUHBA (Museu d'Història de Barcelona). At the same time, he confuses football with cricket and is not entirely thrilled about Spanish cuisine. Will his bucket list of things to see be the same as yours?

Of course not. Even though you have the same amount of time, your preferences and goals for such a trip are completely different. A visit to Camp Nou for your friend might be a complete waste of time, while for you, it could be the main point of the visit.

It’s sort of obvious when you look at planning your trip, but when it comes to day-to-day life choices, we tend to neglect it or pretend our resources are endless. They’re not, and how we use them depends on what our goal is.

Let’s take a look at our personal life. Is meditation good? Of course - over the past years, it has been proven to have a very positive impact on our well-being and helps us be more focused in our work. Is it worth exercising? Absolutely, neglecting physical activity will result in accumulating a debt that will be very large to pay off later in our lives. Both meditation and exercise should be complemented with a cold shower, quiet time during which we plan what we want to accomplish for the day, a healthy breakfast, and ideally, time to read a book or use it for learning new things. Oh, I forgot - if you have kids, you have to get them ready for school, and anyone who has been through that knows it's not a straightforward process.

As a result, the morning becomes quite intense, and sooner or later you realize that you simply can't do everything. And again, you need to choose what is important to you or what will lead you to achieve your goals.

The thing is that we rarely reflect on these things. Caught up in everyday tasks, we often don't bother to contemplate whether what we have to do actually makes sense and whether there is anything driving us forward. Reflection on this matter tends to be occasional - usually at the end of the calendar year, upon reaching a certain age, or while getting through a difficult period of our life. However, it lasts very briefly, and the rush of daily tasks causes us to fall into another hustle of activity. It's just easier that way. Stopping and analyzing whether something makes sense is difficult and often requires facing reality.