In our time-poor world we can all create time for ourselves remembering to ask “For the sake of what am I doing this?”.
In 1988 I was an exchange student in Denmark and I kept a journal of the things I saw and did of the course of a year. Last weekend I found the journal again as I unpacked into a new house. The sight of it reminded me that I have always wanted to type it up on the computer. Now digital that translates to publishing it on my personal website as well. Several years ago I began and quickly found that entering the daily entries was punishing on my fingers (much as writing page after page was the first time around). This time I thought, I could buy voice recognition software and dictate the entries instead. And then I could scan in all my Denmark photos, catalogue them and put them up with the diary entries. And then…
About an hour later I remembered to ask myself “for the sake of what am I doing this?”. I couldn’t come up with an answer that would justify the time or cost. And so the project is shelved. The sake of what in this case was simply for the sake of itself. Few would read the complete journal and the benefit to me is minimal. There is value in taking the time to mull over the entries and remember, but I don’t need to type everything up to do that. I already have the journal and a pair of eyes with which to read it. There is some value in creating a backup copy. But then again, there isn’t. It is 15 years since I first arrived in Denmark and 14 since I left. I’ve read the journal end-to-end zero times in all those years.
So remember to ask yourself “For the sake of what am I doing this?”. You will find you have much more time to do the really meaningful things in your life.