Time as an Absolute

10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... the clock strikes midnight, and yet another New Year is ushered in by boozy cheers, sloppy kisses, and exaggerated promises to change the world.

We wake up on January 1st, bleary-eyed and cotton-mouthed, and commence counting Time up again instead of down. Some of us may keep to our resolutions - some of us will lose weight, some of us will be nicer to others, and some of us will work toward world peace - but many of us (most of us?) will soon forget our best intentions and slide back into our old ways.

Which is a shame, because if there's one thing that New Year's is especially good for it is for reminding us that Time is an absolute. And that while each of us has exactly enough Time allocated to us, each of us never seems to have enough.

We can slice and dice Time to the nth degree, but the fact remains that our Time is limited. There are 60 seconds in a minute. 1,440 minutes in a day. Seven days in a week. 52 weeks in a year. 11 years or 43 years or 106 years in a lifetime (give or take a few years here and there). That's it. No more.

We can talk all we want about making more time or finding the right time or having time on our side, but there is no more Time available to you than there is to me. Each of us has a finite amount of Time, and each of us uses that Time as we best see fit.

Which is one reason I have such little patience for those who use Time as an excuse. These people say "I ran out of Time," or "I just can't find the Time" or "If only I had more Time . . . ."

When I'm feeling especially polite, I say to these people, "Spare me."

Time is a specious excuse. The fact is that everyone has the same amount of Time, so spare me the whining about not having enough Time. Each of us has plenty of Time. It is simply a matter of how we choose to use our Time.

Especially around this Time of year, we tend to pay lip service to judiciously allocating the Time that we have. We resolve that we'll spend more Time with our families or that we'll take more Time for ourselves or that we'll make the best of our Time. And for awhile, we might actually allocate our Time differently, but too often we allow ourselves to slide back into old habits, and Time becomes just something else to be excused.

But every once in a while something drastic happens in order to force us to take Time more seriously. For instance, I have a friend who was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Though it was identified early, and it would seem as though she has a good chance of beating it, the diagnosis has rocked her world.

The Time that she has allocated to her has not changed; it is still measured in seconds, hours, days, and years. But her perspective on Time has changed radically. It is the difference between counting down and counting up. The difference is how she has redefined how she allocates the Time that she has . . . or may have.

It is a difference that now makes all the difference in her world.

So go ahead and celebrate this New Year's Eve. Raise a glass or two to all that has been achieved and all that which will be achieved. But take advantage of some Time in the New Year to reflect on how you allocate your Time and how you might change your priorities.

For we never really take Time seriously until we are confronted with it counting down . . . and by that Time, it can be too late.

--Steve McKibben
12/31/06