Time: The Essence of Life

Do you need time?

Every moment of life is about time. What time were you born? What time do you start your day? What time do you have to be at work? What time are you done with work? What time is breakfast, lunch, or dinner? What time are you going out? You have time for a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment. On and on, every day is based on time. How you manage your time speaks volumes about how your life is going. Don’t get me started on time change!

A coworker was always busy when I worked in the cubicle corporate world. Her favorite phrase at each greeting was “I’m so busy.” Busy with what I wondered? The reason for my visit to her cubicle was to ask if she had contacted a customer or processed an order. The answer was usually — not yet, I’m busy with… I concluded that “I’m busy” was her lack of time management. Her other team members were on top of their customers, and their orders were timely. I also noticed she was really good at delegating. Delegating her other team members to complete her tasks because she was “so busy.”

Requesting time off from work to have relaxation time. Because we spend too much time commuting back and forth to work every week. But we will spend all the time needed to get where we are going when we are on holiday. Only to return to work and say we needed a vacation from our vacation because there was too much to do in such a short amount of time.

Children grow into adults before we realize where the time has gone. As parents with newborns, we feel they will never sleep through the night. Tears in our eyes when they start kindergarten and then walk down the aisle to collect a diploma? What happened? Our children become parents and ask themselves, where did the time go?

I remember when… is probably the most uttered phrase when we reflect back on time. There was a newspaper article with that very title. When newspapers were the go-to for news and events in our local neighborhoods. I made the list on a particular day, my 20th birthday, as the writer remembered the day I was born. Yes, my birth was kind of a big deal in our tiny town.

I travel full-time on the road with my husband because the time is now. I didn’t want to wait for the right time; life is too short.

As I write this daily prompt, I am keeping an eye on the time. I have an appointment this morning, and several must-dos are on my list before my scheduled hour.

I felt rushed during my younger years when I had small school-aged children and working a full-time job. I would be late and had to rush my kids in the morning because their lack of urgency to get to school was intruding on my required arrival time to work. I was not happy with how life was going. Instead, I wasted a lot of time and precious moments that I will never get back.

We create bucket lists to complete before our time is up as living souls on this earth. We feel defeated and reflect back on our time when time runs out, and the list is not completed. Live for the now, I say.

Time goes fast and is the one thing you cannot get back.

Time is the essence of life.

Is it possible to move through the day without looking at the time?