Time is Precious

 As a child, really young, I remember when a day was an eternity. And a week, that was just so far away as to be completely unfathomable. Time just seemed to stretch and I had forever and at least a week more.

But, as Pink Floyd said in their song Time, "And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you had missed the starting gun".

Interesting aside, that album, Dark Side of the Moon, came out when I was ten years old. Everybody who listened to that album really liked the song Money. I, however, instantly gravitated towards Time from the moment I heard it. That song has spoken to me from the beginning and as the years go by my depth of appreciation only gets deeper.

For me that was more like 25 years had gone by. I had lost a lot of time in an imagination haze later fueled by a lot of drugs.

And I discovered that time is not infinate. At least not mine anyway.

As the years go by, and seem to get ever shorter, my notion that time is precious is taking on even more relevance. I have come to believe that Time is the most precious resource that we have. It is the one thing that I can NEVER get back or replace.

I can replace money. I can replace people. I can get new stuff to replace old stuff.

I can never, ever, replace this moment. This precious moment right here will never come again no matter what. I might have a moment like it, one that closely resembles it, and I will never have this one again.

Tic, Toc goes the clock. Tic, this oppertunity is gone. Toc, that relationship is over. Tic, that moment of intimacy is gone. Tok, that moment to be true is missed. Tic, another moment of time is sliced away. Tok, another moment of time is gone. And time keeps relentlessly going on. It never stops. It never pauses. It is always running and tic toc ing away. Non stop.

So what can we do within this relentless march of time? We can learn to be present within the moment we are in and be with the people that are there with us within that moment.

Being Present and Being With. What a pair of concepts.

And how do we do this? In a society that does not appreciate slowing down and smelling the roses, or slowing down at all, this is a tall order. We have been trained differently.

We have been trained to always look past where we are, past who we are with, to look forward towards a future that may or may not ever happen.

And in that way of being lies pain. For in that way we are never satisfied, never grateful, never feeling good about Now. We always looking for what is not here. And we can never truly be present to who is with us in that moment.

So how do we stop that and still live? We make plans. We are human. We must plan. And then, we let go of the outcome. We do what is in front of us and then stop and let the plan unfold however it will.

And we, us so human humans, we live in the Now and be Grateful that we are Here, in this moment of time, and no when or where else. Be present to all of the Joy, Sorrow, and Meh, of this moment. Be present to the people with you in this moment, even if that is only you, and enjoy them as people. For once this moment is gone it will never return.

And repeat for each moment. Until the moments run out and the next adventure, whatever that is, begins.

And if we do that, with Love, then we, as the Human Race, might just survive and thrive thru these uncertain times.

It is up to you, me, all of us.

May the Force be with YOU 😊