We make thousands of choices every day. Some conscious decisions, some automatic responses that we don’t even think about. Your alarm goes off every morning and you debate between hitting the snooze (just 10 more minutes!) or getting up at that moment. You choose your clothing for the day – something that makes you feel confident and comfortable. You consider what you should have for breakfast and decide to swing by a local coffee shop on your way to work. You hop in your vehicle and you’re off to face a day filled with hundreds more choices.
What if we could train our brains to consider some of these decisions that come so automatically to us?
What if we contemplated all the possibilities and all the potential outcomes and far-reaching effects of our daily choices?
What if instead of hitting that snooze button one more time, we leapt out of bed ready to face the challenges of the day with vitality? That extra 10 minutes may not seem like much as you lay comfortably in your bed, becoming one with your comforter, but it can make a world of difference in your preparedness for the day, the week, the month, the year! Let’s say you hit the snooze button just once every day and you work 5 days a week. That’s 50 minutes of lost time every week, over 3 hours every month, and over 43 hours a year! 43 hours! That’s almost two whole days! What could you do with an extra two days in your life? You could work on that project you’ve always wanted to work on, prepare for your work day and wow your boss (hello promotion!) or just listen to some tunes to set the mood for your day.
What if instead of stopping at the local coffee shop for something on the go, you poured yourself a cup of joe from the (gasp!) coffee pot at work? You’d save yourself even more time – and money. What could you do with the extra 20 minutes and $6 you just banked with this decision? 20 minutes a day over 5 days is more than an hour and half a week, over 6 and a half hours a month, and almost 87 hours a year. 87 hours! That’s almost 4 days! What if you spent an extra four days a year volunteering? What kind of impact could you have on someone else’s life? How could you change it for the better?
Furthermore, think about what you could do with the money you’ve saved. $30 per week adds up pretty quickly. That’s $120 per month and over $1,500 per year. WHAT!? Think of all the possibilities here. Of course, you could invest this, you could save up for something you really want, or you could donate it to a good cause.
Let’s consider this last bit. If you donate the money to a good cause, think of the butterfly effect attached to this. Say you donate it to a deworming initiative. This amount will deworm over 150,000 children a year, allowing them to survive and flourish. You could put these funds towards the building of a well in a community that otherwise has no access to water. Think about the weight this carries. The lives you can save and the lives you can change. What if the money went towards building a school in an area where such things are rare? Think of the long-term value of this option. Children are suddenly granted the knowledge needed to break the mold, do big things, and lift themselves up, forever breaking the cycle of extreme poverty.
What would this mean for the next generation? Every parent wants their child to do better and be better than themselves. That little girl in Africa? The one with the soulful brown eyes and dirty bare feet… She’ll grow up to have children of her own some day. Think of what her children can accomplish if we save that girl now. Put the days of walking miles to retrieve muddy drinking water behind her. Get her the medicine she needs to be healthy again. Put her in a school where she can gain the knowledge needed to grow into a successful adult. Do it now. Before it’s too late.
We know that one person can’t save the whole world. But what if you could save just that one little girl? Would you do it? Would you tell your friends? Would you try to convince them to save her brother? Would you start a movement to change THEIR world?
Perhaps that little girl would grow up with hope and kindness in her heart and armed with the tools she needs to succeed, maybe, just maybe, she could be the one to save us all.