Gratitude Friday 04/21/23 – Time. How Did It Get So Late So Soon?

Time. I seem to have less of it than ever! Yet, even as it passes, it has provided me so much. The challenges navigated have provided me with a bounty of accumulated knowledge. My 18-year-old knew almost nothing from this vantage point. What I did have back in those days was carefree, unstructured time. Arguably, I could have used it better. I suspect that my experience is not uncommon in this respect, either in our current age or across history. This quandary of understanding the value of time and how to expend it more effectively is an age-old facet of the human experience. We are faced with a choice; we can rue the thing we have less of or embrace in this moment what we have, and insight gained over the time we have expended, even if the insight is that we could have used it more effectively. Personally, one of the more powerful lessons that life has provided me is the knowledge to start where we are and realize we can only move forward from here with what we have. So, this week, some gratitude quotes on time.

“Time is not the great teacher. Experience is. A man may live a whole life, but if he never leaves his home to experience that life, he dies knowing nothing. A mere child who has suffered and lived can be the wiser of the two.” ― Lynsay Sands

“There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well.” ― Nicholas Sparks

“How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” ― Dr. Seuss

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” ― Eric Roth

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.” ― Sarah Dessen

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“The past is never dead. It's not even past.” ― William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.” ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infintesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is.” ― Alan Wilson Watts

“Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.” ― Hans Christian Andersen

“Do not wait: the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.” ― Napoleon Hill

“Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.” ― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Today is here. May we fully have this thing we have right now! This day was not something I expected to have nor was entitled to in any way. I suspect the same is true for you some of you as well. Gratitude for the time we have may help us more fully experience it. I am grateful for this moment.

What are you grateful for today?