Time is something we prescribe a lot of importance to the extent that we almost can’t function without noting the time at various points during day.
Conducting meetings, completing tasks or achieving anything significant in the modern world would be impossible without using time as a limit. It’s hard to think about a period during which time was not defined. Once there was day and there was night.
The day was meant for working and the night was set aside for resting and sleep.
Since then we have developed an insatiable need to do create clocks and watches, add numerical value to time and structure our lives around it. We have been become so dependent on time that we use it to justify our inability or lack of desire to do something by claiming that we “don’t have time.”
This has become a technique used to sneak out of commitments or gatherings we would rather avoid. The truth is, being busy is subjective. We all get the same amount of time every day; in those hours, you can choose what to commit your time to and gauge the importance of a certain task, event or meeting. What has been evident and rather saddening is that half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. We limit our involvement in college life, the time we spend with loved ones and family, the things we do just for fun and the time we set aside for ourselves. We feel we need to be busy constantly to make “the most out of our time.”
This is commendable to a certain extent. Of course we need to prioritize our lives, but we have to enjoy what we have while we still have it and enjoy it.
As college students, these are our prime years. This is the time we should be using to get involved in clubs and organizations, to make friends and try new things. Some people use lack of time as an excuse not to do these things. The sad truth is time wasted can never be recovered and wasting time does not just mean not using it well.
During high school years we are taught to manage time and set aside time for work and balance it with time for fun or play. It is surprising that we have swayed so far from the simple rules we learned. Time heals all wounds, they say. This is a lie.
We give time so much credit for things that we do, but it’s an inanimate idea. It continues to pass no matter what we do.
When we are hurt, broken-hearted or grieving we heal our own wounds, we move on with life, we stop grieving, pick ourselves up and choose to get ourselves out of such situations. We choose to grow by keeping ourselves busy and learning from painful experiences. If time was what healed all wounds, then we could choose to stay stuck in the past and things would be fine, but we all know if we did this, we would still remain in that situation.
It’s about time (no pun intended) we take credit and responsibility for the decisions we make and stop giving time more power than it has. We ought to stop living under the thumb of time and instead be on top of things and not let our own invention rule us.
Camilla Chebet can be reached at cchebet@spartans.ut.edu.