The ticking of a clock, the numbers constantly changing on a timer. What do all of these things really mean? Yes, time is passing, but what is time? I believe that time is irrelevant.
I began thinking about this my freshman year of high school. I was out of school for three weeks when my grandmother became ill towards the end of the school year. The morning she passed away was what changed my concept of time. It was the day after Mother’s Day, early in the morning before the sun even began to rise. With my mother, aunt, cousin and I around her hospital bed set up in the dim light of the living room, we watched her take her last breath. I glanced over at the digital clock above the television right after she released the shaky breath. The glowing yellow numbers on the clock displayed 4:33 a.m. As the nurse filled out various forms, she said that the time of death was 4:30 a.m. I became dismayed that the nurse had taken three minutes of her life away from her. She was still breathing; her frail, thin frame was still moving ever so slightly. Why weren’t those last moments counted in her seventy-five years of life?
That was when I realized that there is no reason to measure time by typical standards. Time is just a marker for something greater. The only use we have for time is to keep life organized. Seconds, minutes, days, weeks and years mean less than actual time. Time is a way for us to figure out our days. We have class at eight, meet a friend for coffee at ten, and so on. Those are times, but I don’t consider them a part of the bigger concept of time.
The notion is complicated, to say the least. As a society, we would be lost without categorizing time. On the other hand, I believe that time is irrelevant. We have one life and we don't know how long it will last. It could end after seventy-five years like my grandmother, thirty years, or even tomorrow. Our obsession with time is toxic. We waste more time worrying about it than we do enjoying it. We’ve all had moments that we didn’t want to end, but had to. The cliche is “time flies when you’re having fun,” but time is always flying by so fast that we can’t seem to even catch it. Everything we know and love could be gone tomorrow, so it is important to appreciate what we have. We need to make the most out of our lives and not worry about how long that takes.
My grandmother taught me to never take life for granted because it could all slip away in the blink of an eye. I now believe that time is irrelevant.
