Time is Short

Recently, life events reinforced a truth we all know, but seldom ponder: Time is short.  This is not a plea to worry more or speed up, but actually the reverse. Best understood, finite time amounts to an invitation to slow life down, visit people, see beauty, make every second count … really count.

In one sense, the biblical injunction to use time well, recognizing “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) is a prod to accept time’s finite nature, but also to maximize each season, seeing what that season seeks, means, and requires.

Just as seasons come in order, they also recur, which means we may be invited to experience them in some singular way, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, but also to revisit them as God allows. Our seasons include “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and time to dance…”

In one sense, our lives are about continuity, those who are part of our lives, and of whose lives we are a part, but in another, they are about the absence of continuity, the ever-changing, and thus exhilarating and also passing nature of time, which asks us to appreciate what changes.

The old Greek philosopher Plutarch borrowed wisdom from an earlier Greek named Heraclitus when he observed that “It is not possible to step into the same river twice.” The river remains the river, but the one you step into today is not the same as tomorrow’s or yesterday’s.

So what does that definition of time, its passage, and originality in every second, minute, and day mean? In simple terms, at least for me, it means using each day well, spending that day, every part of it, in ways that slow the passage of time with appreciation of people, places, purpose, and beauty.

Expanding on that idea, what is the best use of time, of any given day? How do we maximize time, understand its precious nature, and not mourn its passing but celebrate the new day, time being short?

Like the dual nature of many things, the way a circle’s beginning and end are the same, the answer to that question is – on one hand – the same for all of us, and on the other, utterly different. We should treat each day with a kind of reverence, glad for it, happy in it, just because it is and we are.

On the other hand, how we do that will differ. Some will awake after a good sleep, have coffee, watch birds out the window, putter over a project, perhaps arrange and paint flowers, rearrange and paint them again, write down a few thoughts, enjoy a call from family, and sleep fulfilled.

Others will find purpose in reading, reading some more, lacing up and hiking, biking, skiing, maybe building, or just daydreaming, perhaps caring for animals, the ill, children, spouse, or a friend. And then, on another day, roles may reverse, a painter now a hiker, beachcomber, caregiver, daydreamer.

The point is that to make time matter, to give each second play, each hour purpose, and each day its due; to stretch each of them fully, to magnify or amplify moments within them, we must enjoy them. And for each of us, that enjoyment is a matter of choice, resolve, and difference.

The seminal fact: While time passes, each day is original, by our choice spent in happiness or misery, the celebration of life or missing the chance, taking in the sea’s curl, the smell of sea salt, an eagle in the pines, heron’s flight and feathered head, coffee, and fresh bread, perhaps a sunset, or not.

Time is short, but how we play those cards, how we love the game, how we meet each day, and the joy we claim, is up to us. The more we fill our days with people we love, making new discoveries and friends, giving, creating, reflecting, and slowing time with laughter, gratitude, beauty, and play, the more we appreciate God’s gift, and give it to others, lengthening every day. 

How ironic that the best-lived life is not fast but slow, the best way to understand time’s passage is to pause, focus on others, on a sunrise, book, ponder and doze, paint a glad, amaryllis, or rose, call a brother, sister, daughter, son, parent, or friend, maybe quietly compose.

The biggest things are often simple, the best way to seize the day is to seize nothing at all, but the chance to marvel, give, laugh, linger, cook, paint, build, walk, be curious, wonder, ponder, play, and talk. If, in the long arc of time, we are a puff, perhaps Seneca had it right: “Life, if well lived, is long enough.”

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.