525,600 minutes....

What'd you do with your time today?

I think Facebook is a wonderful thing.  It's kept me in touch with friends from home and my time living overseas, like my friend Erin.  In fact, as I was having a spirited Facebook debate about the Marilyn picture (see here )I came across a very relevant post from Erin's blog.  You can read it here .

Erin had a beautiful baby boy a few months ago and is now adjusting to life in her "new" body.  It is now a body that has served a much higher purpose than just looking good in a bikini: it gave life to another person.  But, like I'm sure many new moms experience, Erin has been struggling a bit with feeling good about herself in her new body.

Her post really hit home with me when she talks about how many hours she estimates she spends worrying about her body.  In 2011 alone she guesses she spent about 60 hours obsessing about what's "bad" about her body.  I don't fault her for this at all.  In fact, I admire her courage in thinking about it so directly because frankly, I'm terrified to think about how much time I spend doing the same thing.  (hint: it's more than 10 minutes a day)

But she really put things in perspective for me.  Imagine how much time is wasted by the entire population o the world per year, sending ourselves negative messages about our bodies.  Hundreds of thousands of hours which add up to weeks and months and even years.  It's incredibly saddening to think about all the good we could be doing with that wasted time.

So the next time you catch yourself dwelling on things that are "wrong" with your body, take those precious minutes and do something with them that makes you happy.  You owe it to yourself.  We all do.