Laid Off, Not Lost

Since being laid off, I have had a lot of time to reflect on life—and what’s next.

But one thing really has stood out to me. The number of people who have been impacted by layoffs who just roll over. Rather than own their situation, they let the situation own them. They become virtual beggars asking for Gofund me donations on social media, rather than taking deliberate action to change their status.

It’s sad really.

One of the things I learned in my police training is that deliberate action is a choice. When things go bad, you can't stop fighting. It reminds me of this phrase:

So when I got whacked like Jimmy Hoffa, I didn’t roll over. I didn’t give up. I started a mobile donut business.

So far, it’s been successful.

It could pay the mortgage. Does it pay me what I made as a tech worker? No. Will it? Maybe.

But here’s what is important. It’s mine.

Most importantly, I am happy when I do it.

Which got me thinking. Time moves forward with relentless precision, indifferent to your plans, your fears, your dreams, or your regrets.

Every second that ticks by is a second you will never get back, a moment that transforms from future possibility into present reality and then into irretrievable past. Which begs the question, how do you want to spend the precious hours, days, months, and years that have been allocated to you?

On Slack? In meetings that really don’t matter? In front of a screen? Working for some asshole CEO that wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire?

The mathematics of mortality simple. If you live to be eighty years old, you will have experienced:

• 29,200 days on this planet

• 700,800 hours on this planet

• 42,048,000 minutes on this planet

How do you want to spend them?

But here's what makes this question so profound and so personal: unlike money, which can be earned, saved, invested, and sometimes recovered when lost, time operates under different rules entirely. Time is the ultimate non-renewable resource. You cannot manufacture more of it, you cannot borrow it from tomorrow, and you cannot get a refund on the time you've already spent.

Just like with money, there is an opportunity cost with time. Every moment you choose to spend in one way is a moment you cannot spend in another way.

Consider for a moment how you spent yesterday. Not in broad strokes, but in granular detail. How many minutes did you spend scrolling through social media, watching content that you'll forget within hours? How much time did you dedicate to conversations that energized you versus conversations that drained you? How many moments were spent in genuine connection with people you care about, and how many were lost to the mechanical routines of modern life? How much of your day was spent creating something, learning something, or experiencing something that added genuine value to your existence? This isn't an exercise in judgment or guilt—it's an exercise in awareness. Because awareness is the first step toward intentional living.

The tragedy of modern life is not that we don't have enough time, but that we spend out time on shit that doesn’t matter or even make us happy. We mistake being busy for being productive, and we mistake being productive for being fulfilled. We accumulate experiences, achievements, and possessions without stopping to ask whether these accumulations are building the life we actually want to live.

We operate like zombies in The Walking Dead; we drudge through minutes, days, hours, and weeks going through the motions, but not really getting anywhere.

The question of how to spend your time is ultimately a question about values, priorities, and meaning. What matters most to you? What kind of person do you want to become? What kind of impact do you want to have on the world around you? What experiences do you want to have, what relationships do you want to nurture, what contributions do you want to make?

These are not abstract philosophical questions—they are practical questions that should inform how you structure your days, how you make decisions about your career, how you choose to spend your evenings and weekends, and how you navigate the countless small choices that collectively shape your life.

Do you want to make donuts? Do you want to mow lawns? Do you want to write code?

The beautiful and challenging truth is that there is no single right answer to how you should spend your time. What brings meaning and fulfillment to one person might feel empty or stressful to another. The key is not to find the universally correct way to live, but to find your way to live—the approach that aligns with your values, honors your unique gifts and circumstances, and creates a sense of purpose and satisfaction.

But finding your way requires more than just thinking about these questions—it requires action.

It requires experimentation, reflection, and the courage to make changes when you discover that your current path isn't serving you. It means paying attention to what energizes you and what drains you, what makes you feel proud and what makes you feel empty, what you look forward to and what you dread. It means being honest about the gap between how you're currently spending your time and how you want to be spending your time, and then taking concrete steps to close that gap.

One of the most insidious obstacles people face is the pressure to conform to other people's expectations and definitions of success. Society, family, peers, and media all send messages about how you should spend your time, what you should prioritize, what constitutes a life well-lived. These external voices can be so loud and persistent that they drown out your own inner wisdom. Learning to distinguish between what you genuinely want and what you think you should want is one of the most important skills you can develop.

It's important not to fall into the trap of thinking that you need to wait until some future moment to start living intentionally. You don't need to wait until you have more money, more time, more certainty, or more clarity. Credence Clearwater Revival has an answer to waiting until someday.

You can start making more conscious choices about how you spend your time right now, today, with whatever circumstances you currently face. Small changes in how you approach your daily routines can create significant shifts in your overall sense of purpose and satisfaction.

You have a limited amount of time. When you embrace this, you become more selective about how you spend it. You become less willing to tolerate situations that drain your energy without providing corresponding value. You become more motivated to have difficult conversations, to take meaningful risks, to express love and gratitude, to pursue dreams that might otherwise remain forever on the someday list.

As you contemplate how to spend your remaining years, months, days, hours, and minutes on this spinning rock, remember that perfection is not the goal. You will make mistakes, waste time, get distracted, and sometimes choose poorly. This is a part of the human experience.

In the end, the question of how to spend your time is the question of how you want to live. You cannot control how much time you’ve get, but you have significant influence over how you use the time you have.

I am not suggesting obsess over every minute. But maybe it's worth asking: "Am I spending these precious minutes doing things that matter?"

Your time is yours.

Choose wisely.