It's Time To Talk About...Time

I had someone ask me the other day a question about the way I spend my time, and it made me think. Actually, I should state that in the present tense; as it’s still making me think. The question was specific to the time I spend alone, when I am out and about, roaming and exploring and sometimes just being. And the question, which I am paraphrasing, was, “when you’re spending your time in that way, would you rather spend that time alone as you’re doing now, or with someone?” For me, it’s a fascinating question. My first immediate answer was, “with someone.” Then, my second almost-as-immediate answer, when I thought about some of the things I do, was “well, no, alone.” Then, when I took some time to think about it, I think I ended up with an “it depends” kind of answer. It depends on how I was spending my time, and where I was spending that time, and who that someone would be at that time, and what frame of mind was in, etc., etc., etc., but sometimes it would be nice to have someone along for the ride, but at other times it’s nice to be alone. 

Well, now I am spending some time thinking about…time. Maybe it’s about time I wrote a post about time. There’s no time like the present, eh?

What is time? 

Some time ago (20 years ago, actually), I wrote about time:

TIME (AS YET UNTITLED)

1:12 AM – Time?

Has neither a beginning nor an end

Yet gives you both a beginning and an end

Creeps slowly when you want to hurry

Hurries quickly when you want to creep

Gives away what you want to hold on to

Holds on to what you want to give away

1:13AM – tick tick tick

Not wanting to hear about itself

Nor about what it does

Always – almost – it has no always nor a never

Passes from a hard-stone past to a cloud-and-fog future

Yet the past can be cloudy and the future stone also

Expect the unexpected

1:14AM – tick tick tick – Time?

Time. Tick...tick…tick… Time is a measure of, well, time. Simple enough, yes? BUT…even though time seems like one of those topics which seems pretty easy to discuss, when you spend some time thinking about time, it really is a topic that can go in many different directions. Is there enough time to discuss everything there is about time?

For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work. - Doug Larson

Most of us have to work, so during that time, we don’t have a lot of choice about how we spend our time. Or do we? Do we control time, or does time to control us? Or both? How much pressure do we put on time, or conversely, how much pressure does time put on us? 

So, in one way, time is not just a measurement of time, but time is also force. A force to be reckoned with. A force that cannot be ignored. A force that can move us and influence us, change us. But is it a force that we can influence?

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. - Denis Waitely

I find it interesting that even though time is very exact, as somewhat alluded to in the above quote - A second is a second, and a minute is a minute – even though time is very exact, when you try to assign a value, there is not a single answer. 

So, not only is time a measure of time, and a force, but time is a commodity as well. Yet, the value of time can’t be expressed numerically. How do we value time? How do we spend time? How SHOULD we spend time? What do we spend our time on?

Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life. - Michael LeBoeuf

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. - Theophrastus

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.”  - Harvey MacKay

BUT…even though time is a commodity, we don’t own time; we have it, but we can’t hold on to it. We can’t keep it. But we can give it.  And we can take it. We can demand it from others, or politely ask for it. We can keep from using it for others. We can use it wisely, or we really don’t have to use it at all. But, regardless of what we do with it, it goes away. Time travels, whether we try to stop it or not. Travels…from place to place. And at times, we speak of time in terms of distance, in terms of place. We speak of milestones based on time - I just reached a milestone of 40 years of life, of time (note: keep this little word switch in mind.) We analyze our lives in terms of where we are in life, not when we are. 

So, not only is time a measure of time, and a force, and a commodity as well, but also a place, and a measure of distance. Where are we spending our time? Where SHOULD we spend our time? When we have free time, where should we go? Where are we headed? Where have we been?

Time is the longest distance between two places. - Tennessee Williams

Where does this leave me at this present moment in time? When all else fails, take a step back in time, back to the original question:  who do I want to spend my time with? Who should I be spending my time with? On? Even time itself is personified – Father Time. So, not only is time a measure of time, and a force, and a commodity as well, AND also a place, and a measure of distance, BUT time is a person AND a function of who.

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times. -  Baltasar Gracian

Time as he grows old teaches many lessons. - Aeschylus

Time is the wisest counselor of all. - Pericles

So, time shapes who we are. We are where we are in time. We only have so much time left, and we need to figure out where time is leading us, and where we want to lead time. 

Tick…tick…tick…

Where would we be without time? Who would we be without time? What happens when we run out of time? What is time? 

Time is a place where we exist. When we exist. How we exist. Why we exist. Why we exist. We exist in time. We cannot exist without time. And really, I think that is a point which is a little understated these days, so let me repeat it:

We cannot exist without time.  Stated differently:

Time is life.

Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life. - Alan Lakein

Everything we do in life, everything we are in life, everything we think in, of, and about life has an element of time. All of the questions posed above, whether directly or rhetorically, about time, are all questions around life, and living. How will we live our time? 

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. - M Scott Peck

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I hope this was worth your time.

__________

Free, Stevie Wonder

Free

Like the river

Flowing freely through infinity

Free

To be sure of

What I am and who I need not be

Free

From all worries

Worries prey on oneself's troubled mind

Freer than the clock's hands

Ticking way the times

Freer than the meaning

Of free that man defines

Life

Running through me

‘Til I feel my father God has called

Me

Having nothing

But possessing riches more than all

And I'm free

To be nowhere

But in every place I need to be

Freer than a sunbeam

Shining through my soul

Free from feeling' heat

Or knowing bitter cold

Free

From conceiving the beginning

For that's the infinite start

I'm gone

Gone but still living

Life goes on without a beating heart

Free

 Like a vision

That the mind of only you can see

Freer than a raindrop

Falling from the sky

Freer than a smile

In a baby's sleeping' eyes

I'm free

Like a river

Flowing' freely through infinity

Free

To be sure of what

I am and who I need not to be

I'm much freer

Than the meaning of the word free that crazy man defines

Free

Free like the vision that

The mind of only you are ever gonna see

Free

Like the river my life

My life goes on and on through infinity