My daughter drove two hours to play golf with my husband for part of his Father's Day and Birthday celebration. (Yes, he was born on the 17th). The time they spent together was so special and it made me think.
You never really think of time as a commodity. We say, "I don't have time for this,"in the same was as we say, "I can't afford this," and yet the two phrases don't resonate in the same way.
We all understand not having enough money for something we want, and have done since our earliest visits to a candy store.
There is something in the ephemeral nature of time that seems to imply that we have an infinite amount of it at our disposal, until we don't. A good friend of ours just lost his mother. It was not expected, but it was peaceful. One minute she was here and the next, she was not.
My husband says there is a theory about time and exercise. He calls it the Specific Tick theory. He says everyone is born with a specific number of ticks in their heart, and if you exercise, you use up your ticks faster. He is joking, but there is a bit of truth to it.
Time is the one thing we can't manufacture or manipulate just because we will it. We can earn more money, but we can't earn more time. That makes it very precious indeed. When we spend time with loved ones, friends, or even just the guy on the bus next to us, and try to be in the moment, we are spending a very valuable piece of ourselves. That's why you should never spend time with negative people if you can help it. You hear people say, "There's an hour I'll never get back." That is a truism if there ever was one.
The golf game was immaterial. They didn't even keep score (but they could tell you how many balls they each lost). The gift was the time.
I am going to try to spend my time at least as cautiously as I spend my money, maybe more so, because it is so fleeting. Tempus Fugit! (Sorry, I had two years of Latin in High School and I rarely get to use it.)
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