Your day doesn't start when you crawl our of bed. Your day—and even your life—doesn't really start until 5:00 PM. What you've done with your time after 5:00 PM last week, last month, and last year has determined where you are today. How you use the other 8 hours today, tomorrow, and next year will determine your future—they are your only hope to radically improve your life. The 8 hours you sleep are lost. The 8 ours you sell for a paycheck are gone. What you have—really, all you have—are the other 8 hours. Life not only happens in those other 8 hours, but life is the other 8 hours.

Where you work, the size of your paycheck, the amount of debt you have, what you weigh, the number of people you can count on to help you in an emergency ... the relationship you have with your spouse and children, and just about everything else that is meaningful to you is the result of how you've used the other 8 hours.

Time has no conscience, and the other 8 hours are indifferent. They can be invested or wasted. The other 8 hours can improve every aspect of your life, but you must do something valuable with them. If you wast the other 8 hours, they can't help you. The clock ticks. Seconds, minutes, and hours pass, regardless of what you do. Your finances, your job responsibilities, your relationship with your parents or spouse, your health, and even your quality of life and level of happiness are either getting better or getting worse. Life and all of the things in it are moving forward, progressing and advancing or falling behind, stagnating, and dying. Is your net worth growing or shrinking? Are you moving up in the company or down? Are you getting closer to your boyfriend or moving farther away from him? Are you getting into shape or losing he battle of the bulge?

There are few things in life as special as someone what wants to improve his life and overcome challenges. Unfortunately, there are few people in life who are willing to change. Too often we see the potential in others that they do not see in themselves. We spend years trying to get them to recognize their own potential. We spend more time and energy trying to get them to change than we do trying to improve our own lives. Of course, it usually ends in frustration and defeat. It reminds me of a saying a friend of mine who has battled alcoholism her whole life told me once. AA is for people who want it, not for those who need it.

The Buddhist believe in reincarnation. We die and come back—each time trying to have a more perfect life until we reach the ideal state of nirvana. I don't think we have to die in order to start over. Each day is another opportunity to get it right and to create a better, more perfect life.