AuthorView By Ken White
“About Time”
“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” ― Dr. Seuss
It’s about time. Slipping away. Being wasted. Running out. Standing still. Flying. Being lost. Filling, making, and killing it. Or, having enough of it. We worry about it being the last time, or the last time around. It’s always time to do this or that. We think about time zones, time outs, and real time; just in time or the nick of time or putting in time. We tell stories about once upon a time and share proverbs about a stitch in time. We fondly recall the first time and agonizeover the only time. We try to take things one step at a time. We long for the time when time was on our side. Time and again, we talk about prime time, big time, me or my time, good time, nap time, in time, alone time, night time, hang time, Christmas time, every time, lost time, quiet time, any time, wintertime, sleepy time, strange time, short-time, part-time, all-time, the right and wrong time. We read Time Magazine or the New York Times, Of Time and the River or a Brief History of Time. We watch Time Warner or Lifetime. We nostalgically look back to the times of our life and hope we had the time of our life. We set our clocks to Greenwich Mean Time and Pacific Standard Time. From time to time, we ponder time management, which we’ll get around to when we have time, and time travel which inevitably requires a time machine. We try to imagine what having time on our hands or the end of time actually look like? We question if there is world enough and time. We sing “Time has come today,” “Time after time,” “Time in a bottle,” and “By the time I get to Phoenix.” We often don’t have time totake our time. What came first, life or time? As one brainiac pointed out, if it weren’t for time, everything would happen all at once at the same time. And, finally, there comes a time when we discover that Father Time waits for no one. The older we get, the less there seems to be of it and the faster it goes. Something we thought took place two years ago was actually five. And we insist on rushing toward then without living in the now, this moment. Only to look back and wonder why we were in such a hurry for the arrival of tomorrow when today will soon enough be gone to yesterday. In the romantic comedy movie, About Time, a young man named Tim learns from his father that the men in their family have the ability to travel back in time. Not forward, just back, which provides our hero with the opportunity to change his past so he can have a better future. Near the end of the movie, Tim learns that his father has terminal cancer, which cannot be changed by time travel. When Tim reels back in time to visit his father the day before he is to be buried, his father counsels him to live each day twice. The first time to experience it in real time as it happens with all the stresses a “normal” person faces. And a second time, now knowing what to expect from the day, in order to savor each moment; embracing the day and enjoying it for exactly what it is. Like a good son, Tim follows his father’s advice. But, he soon realizes that it is a far, far better thing to live each day once and enjoy it as if it were his last. It has been said that yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today’s a gift and that’s why it’s called the present. As we start a New Year, this seems like an incredibly profound and valuable way to live each day.
“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” ― Groucho Marx
