September 19, 2018
While the dictionary provides a clear-cut definition of time — a measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues — time still means different things to different people. Time also can have a relative meaning, a short time or a long time, depending on the time one thinks a condition needs to occur and the importance of pending actions.
For the eight-year-old child, who just celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas is a long time; for the parent, the 33 days represent a short time for gift buying. To the employee looking forward to the weekend, Friday can be a long time away. For a manager with a report due, Friday is a drop-dead deadline. For an engaged girl, her marriage day can seem a million hours away; for the father of the bride, the time has flown and too quickly his little girl will be gone.
What is the thing about time that so intrigues us? George Harrison said of time, “it’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past, and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.”
Maybe it’s time to heed the words of author Mitch Albom, “It’s such a shame to waste time. We always think we have so much of it.” In fact, we may not have as much time as we suppose. Perhaps Pope John Paul ll was thinking of time when he wisely said, “The future starts today, not tomorrow.”
Someone said everyone has the same amount of time, but not all people will use their time wisely. Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss offered insight on time; “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness, how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon?” Before it gets any later, let us accept the value of time and invest it wisely.
We weren’t put here to mark time. Our purpose is to make time useful for ourselves and others. When time ends, your legacy will be all that remains. What will your legacy reveal about how you used your time, the time between birth and death?