A Traditional Recipe for Genius

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My Trouble with Time

Of all the bar stories I could tell you, my favorite is about a little old lady named Poko.

Poko was a regular who used to drink Stoli martinis out of a fancy coup she would bring with her in a velvet purple bag. She had a soft voice and a tricky accent that took me a while to understand, but once I did I realized she was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met; the kind of person who lived fifty lives in the time most people lived one.

Poko grew up as a wealthy elite in Cambodia, until the genocide destroyed her family. Overnight she became a refugee and crossed the border into Thailand on foot. Somehow managed to get to America, where she had no money, no one who knew her, and no knowledge of the language. Got a graveyard shift in a laundromat, learned the language and worked hard. Harder than everyone else. Became an activist in the Vietnam protest movement. Got married. Had children. Eventually Poko opened a restaurant that became very successful, sold it, and now spent her afternoons drinking with me.

One afternoon I asked her,

What is the one thing you would tell someone like me?

She replied,

Do it!

Do what?

Whatever you’re thinking. Do it now! Time is the only thing you can’t get back.

And what am I doing with my time?

Poko’s advice hit me hard, because I’m terrible with time. Ask anyone who’s ever made plans with me, and they’ll tell you I am perpetually 15 minutes late. It’s not that I think my time is more valuable than others’, it’s just that I’m easily distracted. I’ll wander off in thought while listening to a song or getting ready for work, imagining a future for myself, or reliving a past regret, oblivious to the fact that I’ve spent 15 minutes thinking about a reality that isn’t real. Then I’ll panic and then waste another 15 minutes wringing my hands about how I don’t have enough time.

If the brain is for thinking as the heart is for beating, then mine has a murmur for sure.

My Troubles with Time

There are all kinds of time. We have part time. We have full time. Time marches on. Sometimes it drags. It’s of the essence. It waits for no one. So if you don’t want to waste time you shouldn’t kill time because time flies.

No matter the time zone, for all of us there comes a time to laugh, a time to cry, a time to think, a time to act, a time to be born, and a time to die.

So the question is not who we want to become or who we are trying to run away from, but what we are doing with the time we have. Because we cannot control the results of how we spend our time, only what we spend our time on.

It’s time to do something. It’s time to make a difference. You’re younger than you think you are, and you never have as much time as you expect.

A traditional recipe for genius

An idea.

A plan.

Not enough time.