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Time: The Great Equalizer…
Not long and another year is gone, with another one upon us. It’s that time when we take stock. Did we achieve what we said we’d achieve? Did we lose that extra weight? Did we take that vacation? Did we read that book? Did we get that promotion? Did we build that loving relationship? Did we start that business? We ponder, “Gosh, another year over, and what did I accomplish?”
Time, it stops for no one. It’s the great equalizer. It’s precious and it’s priceless. When we’re young, we think tomorrow will never come. Then years fade, and we think where did tomorrow ever go? Each passing one becomes but a smaller slice of our life lived. As a kid, summer holidays endured forever, as an adult they’re gone in a blink!
English Quaker philosopher and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania (now State of Pennsylvania), William Penn (1644-1718) wrote, “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” It seems that some things never change. It’s as if the more time we have, the more prone we are to waste it.
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Remember those dreaded deadlines for school assignments? The longer the deadline and more time, the easier to delay. Procrastination set in (see Procrastination, the ‘Demon’ Hanging Over Us…), and time frittered away as we whispered, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” Then, as if without warning, the day of reckoning rapidly approached and our whisper turned to a scream, “How will I ever get this done?!” Miraculously, with just hours to go, and the ubiquitous “all-nighter,” we somehow dashed victory from defeat and tiredly handed in our caffeine-stained assignments to our grinning teachers. If only we always worked with such urgency? Oh, the things we could achieve!
If time is the great equalizer, then how we use it, is the great differentiator. We are all limited by the amount of time we share on this planet, but we are not limited in the way each of us decides to use it. Whether we succeed or fail in life can often be attributed to how we spend our time. Do we waste it, while watching countless hours of mind-numbing television, or do we value it, and use it to further our goals, ambitions and objectives? The choice is ours, but sadly, many seemingly choose the former over the latter. Naturally, those who are making millions from such television would beg to differ, but at least they are using their time wisely.
My father used to say that if you have twenty years ahead of you, it’s an awfully long time, but if it’s behind you, it’s like yesterday. I would chuckle when I heard him say that, but now, with him passed on almost eleven years ago, I understand the gravity of those words – don’t take time for granted, we only have so much of it…
For more on time, check out The C.A.T. Principle: Change, Action, Trust – Words to Live By, a Global Ebook Awards GOLD First Place Winner for Best Non-Fiction Self-Help Ebook of 2014, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. See the latest Amazon reviews here.
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