Thinking about Time
This morning, I saw a post from Adam Posner, and it got me thinking.
He made me stop and think about time.
Time.
Time is our most precious, non-renewable resource. It’s the one commodity that even the richest tycoon or the most cunning Wall Street sharpie can’t finagle more of. Bezos, Musk, Gates — no amount of money, no level of genius, no groundbreaking invention can buy them a second more than 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. They’re stuck in the same temporal gridlock as you and me. But the trick is, they understand the value of time.
We can’t get time back. It’s the Rolex that doesn’t rewind, the Sandman with no reverse gear. It’s the same for all of us, whether you’re sleeping on silk sheets or a saggy couch, your allotment doesn’t change. It’s the ultimate equalizer.
Look, I get it, we’re all guilty. Guilty of whiling away hours on mind-numbing social media feeds, guilty of bingeing on Netflix while important tasks and human connections languish. We trade hours, days, years of our life for ephemeral, digital dopamine hits. We’re not just losing time, we’re handing it over willingly. And for what? A retweet, a like, a hollow echo of approval from a cyberspace stranger?
We need to quit this constant chasing of pixelated shadows and seize control of our time. Because every moment spent obsessing over a stranger’s perfectly filtered Instagram life, every second we lose in the black hole of TikTok, that’s time that we’re not spending on creating something real, something tangible. That’s time we’re not using to deepen our relationships, to learn, to grow, to explore, to breathe. It’s a brutal, no-refunds, one-way transaction.
You can’t outsource time. You can’t delegate it, you can’t pause it, and for god’s sake, you can’t save it for a rainy day. Time is slipping through our fingers, grain by precious grain, while we are busy capturing the ‘perfect’ sunset for our followers.
Here’s the thing: There’s no ‘undo’ button on life’s keyboard. No Command+Z, no Control+Z. There’s only the unflinching forward march of the clock’s hands.
We need to value our time the way we value our money — invest it wisely, spend it judiciously, and save it for things that truly matter. Because, my friends, time is the one thing we can’t afford to squander.
We can’t get time back.
Once it’s gone, it’s gone. That’s the bitter pill to swallow. So let’s stop mistaking busyness for productivity. Let’s stop trading our precious minutes for meaningless trifles.
Make every moment count, because in the grand scheme of things, it’s the moments that count. And always remember, unlike our bank accounts, we can’t earn more time. We can only spend it. And we can’t spend it again.
So like Adam said, choose how you spend it wisely. I’m going to go spend it with my kid.
