This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
The average Rock Islander wastes two hours, sixteen minutes, thirty-four seconds each day. Don't judge. If the truth be told, you are likely little better than average.
Add up the minutes you waste, starting with the five minutes you lie abed after the alarm, the minute waiting for warm shower water, the three minutes waiting for the toast to pop up, the ten minutes doing the cryptoquote in the morning paper, the two minutes deciding which tie or earring to put on, two minutes for the coffee to cool down—and you've wasting twenty-three minutes without even leaving for work.
Contrast this with David Collins of Moline. David is a literature and creative writing teacher at Moline High School: there go eight to ten hours of classroom and papers. After hours, he directs the Mississippi Valley Writer's conference (which he founded), runs a group known as the Writer's Studio, and hosts many children's writing and reading conferences at area schools, libraries, and historical societies.
In his spare time, David writes. He has found enough extra minutes to be able to spend two hours a day at his computer writing books. In the last 25 years, David Collins has published sixty books; four more due out later this year. More often than not, his books win important awards from national educational and publishing groups.
Meanwhile, where are all your minutes going? There they all go: the last half of your lunch period, the long phone call from a magazine salesman, opening all that junk mail, the fifteen minutes waiting for the movie to start. "How have you spent your day?" Thoreau asks in Walden. And spend it you have. Have you got your money's worth?
Think of all you could do with your two hours: the books you could write, the vegetables you could raise, the leaky faucets you could fix, the instruments and languages you could learn. Just think of what you could have done with these past two and one half minutes.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
