The quiet cost of waiting
I have been thinking about time lately… as a concept. How wild is it that it’s one of the few things we have, it is precious to us, and yet we do not know how much we have left? Although we can find smart ways to make it work for us and stretch it, there is no actual shop where you can buy more. Yet we treat it so cheaply. It baffles the mind that the everyday person rarely thinks about how much time they have left, or their own mortality, and when they do it’s in a depressing context, perhaps because someone close has passed or some traumatic event has occurred. Even then, it’s only a short-lived epiphany before we know it we are back to the same old habits.
I’m still young, I mean at the beginning of my 30s, and yet I feel like I have spent a fair amount of time on this planet to share my perspective on this matter, well, I think.
The other day I was having a conversation with someone who is going through a difficult season and they came to me for advice, which was quite an honour to be trusted in that way, perhaps I’m old now lol. But before I proceeded with my response, or lecture lol, I asked the person: how old are you? The moment they responded “20,” a smile came to my face, with such relief, and to be frank it changed everything about the advice I was about to give. And like many people older than me have told me before, I repeated almost mechanically: “you have your whole life ahead of you,” marvelling at the wonder that they have a full decade that I have already consumed!
I don’t even remember where I was going with this, but my point is, just like most of you, time is something I’m not trying to take for granted anymore. Just because I have been getting every day faithfully for over thirty years, I shouldn’t lose the wonder and awe of what it really means to be alive. As a scientist, I have had the privilege of studying life across various species and I must say I am in awe of the intricate, delicate, and sophisticated (I now sound like an LLM but I promise it’s me writing) molecular and physiological processes that keep us alive. And as a man of faith, I am absolutely certain that this is the work of a creator and that there must be a purpose placed in me, hence I am here.
I once heard a quote that says time is everything we have and don’t.
If I may digress, time is actually the currency we trade for so many important variables, or for lack of a better term, things in our life:
To grow spiritually, you have to invest time. To have better relationships, you have to put in time. To grow intellectually, you have to put in time. And to grow financially, it also goes without saying.
My goal is not to turn you into a stoic who will be living and practising memento mori for the rest of your life, but just to encourage us not to lose the wonder of this precious time that we get to spend, and to make the molecular processes that keep you alive count for something. Because as I have once heard, the longer we live, we will reach a point where you get a sense that your time is coming to an end, and there is nothing that will hurt you more than realising that you didn’t live your full purpose. I sometimes picture it as the crushing weight of regret pressing onto my deathbed. Each act of inaction, procrastination, and opportunity not taken adds to this weight that eventually eats me from the inside like cancer and crushes me from the outside.
Keeping that in mind, we have to understand that sadly there is a force fighting for your time and your purpose on earth. It often takes the form of what usually entertains us and sounds like this: one day I will… I’ll start on Monday… today is not the right day… five more minutes… one more episode… I’ve had a long day, or as we have often responded, give me a break…
I think I have made my case, and I will say: let it not be too late. May today be the tomorrow you always talked about.