Tick Tock - Time to think about time

Clock is based on a painting by Salvadore Dali

 Salvadore Dali clocks and melting clocks.

"Tomorrow's just your future yesterday" Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson theme song






This thought has been on my mind for awhile now. However, I hate to mention time because as a procrastinator.....there never seems to be enough of it. It is frustrating because it makes me realize I do not always use my time effectively.

I used to say I would "make" time to do something. Who am I kidding? We can't "make" time. We all have the same 168 hours/week limit. 8,760 hours (525,600 minutes) in a year. That sounds like so many. Then you factor in sleep, eating, everyday stuff and those hours and years just seem to dwindle.

I finally realize I need to "take" time to do the important things...even the mundane, boring things I don't necessarily enjoy doing. I think I am going to start thinking of time like money $$cha ching. It is something that needs to be budgeted. This gives a whole new meaning to "spending time" with someone. ;) However, there is one big difference between time and money. We can earn more money. We cannot earn more time. Time is valuable. I need to learn to spend it more wisely.

I made an Excel sheet with 168 boxes: 1 for each hour of the day. I would have broken it down into smaller chunks of time, but I wanted to have room to write. On a good week, I remember to keep track. At the end of the week, I review. I try to set schedules for things I have to do every week (prayer group, family time,  refill pill boxes, trash, dishes, laundry, etc) Sometimes I do better than others. Sometimes I suffer from calendar creep. Those little boxes just keep filling up with events and appointments and if I'm not careful....there is something in every box of the week.

I think one of my biggest reasons for writing this now is that I want to get to the end of my life with no regrets. No I wish I would haves. When I was a kid, it seemed like I had forever to wait until the "big" birthdays: 10 - double digits, 13 - teenager, 16 - license and drive, 18 - adult (uh, yeah), 29 - uh oh almost 30, 20's and 30's - get married and have kids, 40's - seeing the top of "the hill".....we all know what comes next. What the end will be. We may not know how, but we know how life ends up.

While looking for quotes, I was thinking Time is the great equalizer. The one that kept popping up though was Death is the great equalizer. Both are right.

Ecclesiastes 3 (NLT)

A Time for Everything

3 For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.
² A time to be born and a time to die.
    A time to plant and a time to harvest.
³ A time to kill and a time to heal.
    A time to tear down and a time to build up.
⁴ A time to cry and a time to laugh.
    A time to grieve and a time to dance.
⁵ A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
    A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
⁶ A time to search and a time to quit searching.
    A time to keep and a time to throw away.
⁷ A time to tear and a time to mend.
    A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
⁸ A time to love and a time to hate.
    A time for war and a time for peace.

⁹ What do people really get for all their hard work? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. ¹¹ Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. ¹² So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. ¹³ And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

Season of Love - Rent

English writer and novelist Arnold Bennet (1867-1931): “Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle; an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.  You wake up in the morning with your purse magically filled up with 24 hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life!  It is yours.  It is the most precious of possessions.  No one can take it from you.  It cannot be stolen. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.  In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect.  Genius is never rewarded by even an extra hour or a day.  And there is no punishment.  Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you.  Moreover, you cannot draw on the future and it’s impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment.  You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you.  You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you.  I have said the affair was a miracle.  Is it not?  You have to live on this 24 hours of daily time.  Out of it you have to spend health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul.  Its right use and its most effective use, is a matter of the highest urgency and of the most thrilling actuality.  It all depends on you!  Your happiness, the elusive prize that you are all clutching for, my friends, depends on your use of time.”