Written by I hear it a lot, everywhere, in fact. “Time flies.” “Where has the time gone?” “There’s just not enough hours in the day.” So on, and so forth. And, for the most part I agree, time marches on. Sometimes it seems to move faster than it does at other periods of our lives. So, the one side of time, is the fleeting glimpse of the persons, pieces, and moments that occupied the space formerly known as the present.
Then, there’s the other side of time, spending it. Spending time. As you all probably know by now, I’m not the smartest person in any room I enter. Even so, a couple of times over my working years I have made decisions that were risky, puzzling maybe, and certainly not in line with societal worker bee mentality. Some were clear cut choices, some more out of necessity, and still others based on needs greater than my own. Honestly, though, one underlying theme over these years has been the decision on how my time was going to be spent. Numerous times I’ve chosen to spend time instead of spending money, or even spending more time in making money.
Here’s how I see this other side of time. Dollars are made, dollars are spent. In the end, my dollars end up in someone else’s register drawer or another’s wallet. Either way, I’ll look back at the pictures, or hear the stories, even bask in the memories, and I’ll ask “Where did the time go?” The difference is that the investment of time, time spent with those who matter the most, is not only priceless, but the experience I completely own is also, forever weaved directly into the fabric of time that has elapsed throughout a lifetime.
I can always make another dollar or two, but never again can I recreate time that has passed. So while memory fades, or certainly gets cluttered by the pace of information we daily process, I’ll try to be present now, investing in the memories that are yet to come.