T is for Time

T is for Time. There is never enough. Have you ever sat down at the computer or writing desk and later looked up to find that hours had flown by without notice? My mother used to tell me that as you grow older time passes more quickly. I fancied myself as something of an academic, therefore I found that concept to be ridiculous. There are 60 seconds in each minute no matter what your age. Right? WRONG! Once again, Mom was right. (Wasn’t she always?) Just yesterday (it seems) I was fretting about turning 40. Now 50 is in the rearview. Time certainly does fly. When I was a child, I wished to be older. Mother, in her wisdom, always said the same thing about that. “You’re wishing your life away.” Now I understand.

Shakespeare wrote, in Sonnet 60. “Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.” People speak of turning back the clock. But time is the one thing, once spent, you can never retrieve.

Shakespeare writes of time again and again in his sonnets and plays. He understood how precious are our fleeting moments.

Another genius, cultural icon, and man ahead of his time, Steve Jobs, said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” He understood the value of using time wisely. Look at all he accomplished in his abbreviated time on the planet.

For writers especially, time is a commodity. We trade time we should be doing things like sleeping or cleaning or relaxing with friends for time getting our thoughts down or our stories told. But it is a fair bargain. We must write to build our worlds, tell our stories and hopefully to inspire generations to come as we have been inspired. T is for Time. #atozchallenge