Ten-Minute Jolt

Take out envy, take out greed. Take out ten minutes of each day.

I watched the end of the movie “Cool Hand Luke”, where Paul Newman, the escaped prisoner named Lucas, is once again caught, shot in the neck and taken away in a police car, where he supposedly dies. The end credits roll over a black and white photo of him standing in the middle of two beautiful showgirls, his arms around them. In the photo, he looks as if he is having a better life than anyone on Earth. I want that life, I think to myself.

I change the channel, and see a show with a pretty bikini model. The lighting is perfect, her bikini is perfect, and her makeup is perfect to the point that she doesn’t look like she’s wearing makeup. I want that model, I think to myself.

I change the channel again, and see a baseball player hit a home run to win the game. It’s a sports highlight show, and for two minutes the commentators rave about the baseball player. I want to be that baseball player, I think to myself.

Out of every twenty-four hour period, I spend probably ten minutes in a state of envy and greed. For ten minutes every day, I forget the fact that I have just spent the last twenty-three hours and fifty minutes at peace with myself. I forget the fact that I have been and continue to build a healthy life surrounded by good people and laughter.

It’s amazing how powerful those ten minutes can be, how they can seem to overcome everything else. For ten minutes, the world reinvents itself. My mind and perception change so that the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes aren’t good enough anymore. I want out, I think to myself. What the hell am I doing living this boring life, I think to myself. This goes on for about ten minutes.

Given only ten minutes of perceiving their existence, I have no choice but to stretch that time into a whole day, into a whole life. Given only ten minutes, I have no choice but to fill the rest with my imagination. And then I would have to compare their ten minutes of perfection with my twenty-four hours of normal. And if I do that, I will never be as good as they are.

It’s funny how I don’t really think about what those people are doing the other twenty-three hours and fifty minutes of their lives. Are they in a constant state of perfection? Do I know anyone who lives in a constant state of perfection? The answer is no, but I seem to forget that for about ten minutes every day.

I’ve never stopped to think that there might be people who look at me, during my very occasional intermittent ten minutes of public grandeur, and think, “I want that life.”