How do we define time?
Twenty-four hours, 1,440 minutes, 86,000 seconds—is how much time we have in a day and how do we spend it all?! A good healthy lifestyle would include roughly 7-9 hours of sleep in a night in order to fully function (at least for me or I am like a zombie).. Anyways 24-8 = 14 hours remaining. Most of us work an 8 hour business day (or go to school). This now leaves us with just 8 hours left in a day….! Dang, time really gets away from us, doesn’t it? Since I haven’t even mentioned the time it takes someone to shower or get ready. Or meals. Or other activities going on. What about the gym? I mean you only have 1/3 of the day left.. How can we accomplish everything in such a small period of time? I mean one hour out of the day is only 4% but you don’t have 24 hours now.. You have 8 and that number triples… We have to be organized in order to do the things we want to in a day.
I read this quote a while back and found that it is one of the truest things I have read..
“Try to imagine life without timekeeping.. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures.. A fear of time running out.”
We make appointments and arrangements to work with our schedules we create for ourselves. We plan things well in advanced. And sometimes we have events and activities the last up to weeks at a time.. Like school for example: each semester is roughly 16 weeks.. By the end of week one you are already wanting it to be over! Even me, who loves learning and going to school and class (yeah yeah I am weird), just looks to when the end will be. When I can mark another school year off in the books.. It’s actually pretty sad, I feel like I am in a constant routine of eating the same breakfast, going to work certain days of the week, class, practice/workout, homework and sleep. Repeat. Routines get to be exhausting because no one likes doing the same thing every day for a length of time. We like variety and adventure but when you have something that takes up to weeks to accomplish, we tend to get sucked in the routines. We take every day for granted. We look and plan ahead because we plan on being alive. Of course we do, we plan on living a long and healthy life. At my age, death isn’t really in the picture.. It’s for old people but yet anything can happen on any given day. Take a car crash for example.. It only takes seconds for a collision to occur and it can change the whole outcome of the day. Recently, I was just in a near death car experience. There was a truck that was half way in my lane coming at me and I had no side of the road to go to. At the very last second, as I was peeing my pants, he swerved over to his side. It was in just a short instant where my life flashed before my eyes. I can tell you that that is not the first nor will it be the last near-death experience. Now I’m not trying to be depressing at all!! I’m just trying to get the point across to not take a single day, or even moment for granted. But that is not the only thing we rush.. We want to grow up.. Nothing like talking about defying time on the day I start a new decade of my life. The big 2 0 ! Trust me, I realize I’m not old- but hey I kinda feel old (so let me have my moment)!! In this decade.. I’m no longer going to be a teenager, I am what we call a “grown up”; what we look forward to. We look forward to the day we turn 13 because we finally are a teenager but that’s not enough, we want to be 17 so we can get into R rated movies.. And then by 18 we can buy lottery tickets and cigars. Honestly, 21 is just an age where you can waste your hard earned money on alcohol, at the bars, the casino. Yay? I don’t see the point.. But it’s the cool thing to do because house parties are for the youngins who can’t go to the bars, ya know?!
But dang, these next 10 years I will have to be mature, act my age, be an example. I’ll graduate college, have place of my own, hopefully get married, to have kids; to make a family. Then we can’t wait to get a bigger place.. Or we can’t wait for our babies to stop waking us up many times throughout the night. With all this time, we are in a rush.. A rush to get everything done in a day because deep down we know that there may not be time to do it tomorrow, if there will even be a tomorrow. But what are we actually doing with all this time on your hands? Well bless your heart for taking time out of your day to read my blog, whether this be your first one or a committed follower… You will never know how much I appreciate it. I write because it is my way of giving back, it is my passion. What I mean is that I want to make a difference in the lives around me and in some I may never know. I want to change your perspective on many different things our culture is so against us thinking differently about. I would write more… If I had more time.
The point I am trying to get across is that I am guilty of taking things for granted. I have experienced going day by day, doing the same ole thing and not really making every 86,000 seconds count.. I probably have wasted many days not making much of any of those seconds count. There is a saying where it talks about having $86,000 in your bank account, how would you spend it? Wisely, or just waste it all away? There was a period of my life in high school in which I went through a stage.. A stage of me not knowing what my purpose on this Earth was. I was to the point of debating if living was even worth it.. You being able to read this, you know how the outcome turned out. But if any of you are possibly thinking the same thing, don’t. You have a purpose in this crazy beautiful life (what my next post will be about!) that only you are able to fulfill. I promise you, regardless of how life is treating you.. It’s worth it!! This is the good life!
A few days ago, a huge realization in life occurred to me while I was on my way back to college. This didn’t just come out of nowhere, I was in a rough place to be completely honest and God decided that that moment right there He was going to talk to me. Lately, I have been letting the day’s worries and troubles consume all of my thoughts, my actions. I was not being myself. I felt alone and depressed because I was missing God’s grace and glory in every day.. I was making the smallest things seem like my world was ending. I was trying to control situations that I had no control over, God always has control though and that was what He was telling me. I listened to “Jesus Take the Wheel” by Carrie Underwood.. I had to YouTube it because I didn’t even have it on my phone but I was told to listen to it. Lets just say I was bawling while driving. Reality hit right then that I was trying to be the driver in my crazy beautiful life.. Jesus is supposed to be. He created us.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
His plans are always going to be far greater than the plans we make for ourselves but sometimes we tend to wander off on our own path instead of following His way.
Two different songs that are very popular really stick out to me when I think of how fast time really does go..
- You’re Gonna Miss This by Trace Adkins
“You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast. These are some good times, so take a good look around..”
- It Won’t Be Like This For Long by Darius Rucker
“One day soon that little girl is gonna be all grown up and gone. Yeah this phase is gonna fly by; He’s try’n to hold on.. It wont be like this for long..”
Recently, I watched the movie Lucy and it was outstanding. I highly recommend renting it or buying the movie. I don’t want to ruin the whole movie but this girl named Lucy had what we would consider superpowers when a drug got broken from its pouch in her stomach. Blah blah blah.. The part I want to tell you. She was able to do absolutely everything, even stop time, go back in time, fast forward it. You name it. Have you ever wanted to go back in time? To redo something that didn’t go your way? Or to just relive an amazing moment—like a vacation, your wedding day, a party? First of all, you should never have the desire to go back into time. As stated in Tuesday’s With Morrie— If aging were so valuable, why do people always say, ‘Oh if I were young again.’ You never hear people say, ‘I wish I were sixty-five.’ Morrie goes on by saying.. You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five. Listen. You should know something. All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow. The fact is, you are going to die eventually. It won’t matter what you tell yourself. But hopefully, not for a long, long time. What happened in your past is what shaped you into the person you are today. I hope you are happy with that person you look in the mirror and see because I just want to tell you I think you are absolutely amazing. I am proud of the person you are today and there is no reason that you shouldn’t be too! Anyways.. About time. Never look back, always look ahead. That is the only advice I can give you. I have a couple quotes for those of you who do have troubles letting go of the past.. I am a quote girl and I know it may be hard to hear but it is the truth.
“The future is scary, but you can’t just run back to the past because it is familiar. Yes, it is tempting, but, it’s a mistake.”
“Don’t let past relationships and old mistakes ruin your future. Don’t let someone or something that didn’t make it in your life continue to hurt you. If you do, you’re still giving a portion of your life to something that no longer exists—its like letting your happiness slip into a black hole. Learn the lesson, release the pain, and move on. Scars remind us of where we have been, not where we are headed.”
All I hope you get out of this post is that every day is a gift (hence the reason it being called the present ;)) and being worried about pity things is just going to waste a perfect day that you will never get back.
“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34
And never take anything or anyone for granted because you never know how each day will turn out, therefore, always give it your all; to your job, your family, your loved ones, your friends, the strangers, and the outcasts. How would you want your last day to be remembered? Life is too short so ALWAYS love.
“He has made everything beautiful in it’s time.” Ecclesiastes 3:11
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