A friend of mine makes time to watch the sunset everyday. She says there’s a spot in the parking lot that perfectly separates day and night – the warm colors: red, orange and yellow and the cool: blue, green, indigo and violet – the future from the past. And there she is in the present, in the middle, just watching time lapse.

You might read this and think, “Oh, that’s nice.” Or maybe just skim and see something about the daily phenomenon that you’ve heard of but never genuinely appreciated. Or, most likely, it will just be some words left abandoned inside a newspaper on a lonely blue stand that you will walk by, perhaps look at but never open, on the way to get food or in a crowded hall blocking the door to a class.

“I would love if I had time to do things like read the newspaper or watch the sunset but I’m just too busy.” Because only people who write for the newspaper read it. And only people on the beach watch the sunset. Right?

We have 24 hours. Somehow we are expected to balance classes, homework, sleep, work, student organizations, family and friends. We barely can manage to support those basics. Some of them we even neglect and sacrifice in order to fulfill another.

It’s true; we don’t have time for everything. We don’t have time to exercise, read the newspaper, watch the sunset, go to class, do homework, go to club meetings, call our family, bartend or get our eight hours of sleep all in one day. But we can make 15 minutes for something. Anything besides the routine.

It’s important. It’s how we escape the end of the year regret – I wish I wrote more, meditated, read, drew, ran, etc. “But I didn’t have enough time.” I’ll make time tomorrow, next week, next year. All of the sudden we expect to have more time, but it’s the same amount.

If we just take 15 minutes a day, we can begin to expand our perspective and also feel that great sense of accomplishment gained when able to commit to something. We’re not going to have these huge chunks of time in the future to do this things we always wanted to do but never made the time for. We have to make the time.

Take 15 minutes that you would use sleeping, watching television or scrolling on your phone to do something worthwhile. Something you thought about, told your friends about, something you used to love. Whether it be watching the sunset, reading the newspaper, writing a journal entry, checking in on high school friends, sketching…I don’t care, just do something worth talking about. Do something to be able to contribute to intellectual conversation.

Be more than school and Netflix and naps and parties for 15 minutes. 

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