Imagine there is a bank (for the sake of it, let’s call it the ‘Nations of Jefferson American Bank,’ ala The Art of Being Jonny) that credits your account each morning with $1,440. But every single evening when the clock strikes midnight, it deletes whatever remains of that balance that you failed to exhaust during the day.

What the holy heck would you do? Spend every single cent, right?

Each one of us belongs to a bank just like this – it’s called the ‘Bank of Time’. Every morning we’re given 1,440 minutes to do something great and every night, we lose whatever we have failed to invest wisely. This bank carries no balance and allows for no overdraft. Each day, you’re gifted with a brand new account, free to do with it what you wish. But if you fail to use up your daily deposit, the loss is yours.

You see, the concept of time is rather elusive because it stands still for no man or woman. It is our life currency – an immeasurable bag of golden coins that will eventually dissipate into ash. We are all allotted a certain amount of time in our lives – and whether you believe this allocation to be predetermined is likely a discussion for another day. But the moral of this story is: those who spend this critical currency dreaming and doing things they’re passionate about will ultimately soar the skies and change the world.

“You may delay, but time will not.” — Benjamin Franklin

I’m about to begin a sorely-needed three-week holiday period. In 2018, I’ve been bruised and battered, stumbled on my rear-end but reached the finish line multiple times over. It’s been a taxing yet fulfilling 12 months. So as I approach this moment in time – a time that for me, ironically, seems to stand still in orbit – I begin to wonder what I’m going to do with the 30,240 minutes I now have up my sleeve. For three weeks, my responsibilities will disappear – I can put adult-ing on hold and ‘live my best life,’ as the young kids say. But I don’t want to waste a single minute. Here are my options:

• Spend time with my loved ones
• Continue writing my second novel
• Continue work on my children’s story/animation concept
• Produce more music – R&B, Hip-Hop, my Michael Jackson album (more on this coming soon), my Audio Jungle portfolio
• Shoot hoops and soak up the sun on the beach
• Catch up with friends, eat a ton of unhealthy food and get my ass handed to me over a game of mini golf
• Catch up on my Netflix binging and watch a bunch of movies I keep forgetting to watch
• Plan my house development, prepare for my wedding and honeymoon
• Design, create, innovate
• Relax

Let’s face it: that’s a ton of crap to want to do in three weeks. But I want to do all of it. This be-damned first-world problem got me thinking: If I was told today that I had three weeks to live, would I be content doing the things I’ve scheduled myself to do?

Well, for starters, I’d get married a lot sooner. But I’d begin to plan for everything: should I still be aiming for 8 hours of sleep? Are 6 enough to give me the energy I need to enjoy every lasting moment? The thing about time is that all too often, we waste it, we neglect it, and fail to fully understand its value. Did you know that over a lifetime, we spend almost 92 days on the toilet? That’s on average! Now, I do a lot of my thinking on the crapper, so I’d add another 15-20 days, personally. But it really makes you wonder about the time we lose over naught, right? Every day that passes is a day closer to our last which makes time the most precious of commodities.

If you’re like me, you’re a dreamer. You don’t want a waste a single second doing anything that doesn’t further you on your path to glory and triumph. But it’s also important to remember that we need balance. We can’t be successful if we don’t take the time to recharge the batteries, to reignite the passion deep within us that allows us to fantasize. I reckon we’ve become conditioned to believe that we’re robotic – a bunch of Energizer bunnies on the go, go, go!

So this holiday season, I’ve decided to make myself a pact: use all my available time wisely. Time is a resource but not one that you can buy, rent, borrow, store, save, renew or multiply. All you can do with it is spend it. So I’m going to spend my time like Jonny Jinks in the Chateau Marmont, doing things that make me smile – doing things that’ll plant feathers in my cap.

Time is finite, so let’s dream big and do bigger.