Thinking Time

I recently watched and listened to a portion of a panel discussion involving individuals who had been involved in a number of political campaigns. All of them had worked for the same person. All had been with him during both losing and winning campaigns. I know that some of them (I think all of them) had also been with this man during his time as our president.

As they talked and reminisced, one thing became abundantly clear. People in positions like the ones they had and who have the responsibilities they had absolutely do not work either an eight-hour day or a forty-hour workweek. Neither does the person for whom they work.

The fact that neither they nor the candidate/officeholder work “by the clock” was what made one particular part of the discussion particularly interesting to me. According to these people, the man for whom they worked insisted on a special “block of time” each day. It did not matter what else was going on. It didn’t matter who was needing to talk to him. According to them, this block of time was non-negotiable. It was something he absolutely insisted on.     

Please do not overlook the fact that we are discussing a person who crisscrossed the nation to run for national office. He did this twice as a candidate for the second highest office in our nation and three times as a candidate for the presidency. During his political career, he had also campaigned for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and had also sought (unsuccessfully) to be the governor of his home state. 

Can you even begin to imagine the demands on the time a person like this must have? I thought about making a list of some of the responsibilities and expectations, but I soon discovered that I have no idea about what is expected.

Added to the amount of time that must be spent on various facets of the “job” of being a candidate for high office and the responsibilities of that office, there are also the consequences of decisions that are made and actions that are taken. How would you like to be the person who has the man with “the football” close to you everywhere you go? 

In case you are not familiar with that phrase, there is somebody close to our president at all times who carries “the football.” It is not a ball. It is some sort of equipment that contains certain codes which would allow our president to authorize (from wherever he happens to be) nuclear war.

So – what did one of our former presidents insist on each day? According to those who knew and worked with him there were two words written on the daily calendar. Those two words were not meeting time, nap time, reading time, discussion time, rest time, phone time, correspondence time, or any other “time” that might be important.

Those two words were…

Thinking Time

Could you benefit from some time devoted to uninterrupted thinking? Can you think of some decisions and/or actions that would have been different if you had spent more time thinking about them? Is there the possibility that you could save yourself some embarrassment (or could have in the past) by doing some thinking before speaking or acting?

Could you benefit from some thinking time? I know I sure could.

In case you are wondering how to profitably use your thinking time, maybe you could start here:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Phil. 4:8, ESV).

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AUTHOR: Jim Faughn