We like to think that time is real because it's all we've ever known. The time we were born. The time we first learned how to ride a bike. The time we need to clock in at work. The time we are supposed to have everything figured out.

We often go our entire lives never really questioning why it is that we have this concept of time or where it came from. It is just a concept. It's something that we created in order to get a grasp of history and our day-to-day lives. Something we can understand (kind of) but not actually see. We have clocks, yes. But we have no way of knowing that our "time" is right. Time goes as far back as we can think of, and it'll continue for us up to when it is our time to die. Unless something catastrophic happens where all time on our planet is terminated because we aren't treating our Earth right, but it's not like that is going to happen (treat your mother right, people; both your real mom and Mother Earth). So, for the most part there will come a time when we all die. You, me, everyone we know. But time, it will still go on.

Time never stops, and we can dream that maybe the world will stop for five minutes so we can breathe, but we all know that isn't going to happen. We want five minutes to just sit and stop. But time moves even when we don't. The point of this article is that time is something we created, and it is short. Life is the longest thing we will ever be a part of, but it still feels like it's not enough. People before us created this concept of 12 p.m. and 6 a.m. and then we began putting events to dates. Then we started having deadlines and all this pressure behind time. We have this constant pressure that we aren't doing the most with the time we are given, but it is up to us to determine what we want to do with the time we do have.

So stop worrying about whether you'll be married "on time" or have kids before you're too old, because honestly, this is your life. It is your short, not-enough-time life. You get to decide what you do with this time. You can spend all of it traveling (if you have that extravagance, I envy you) or you can spend it all being at school, getting a stack of degrees (with how high tuition is these days, I envy you again). Or you can do nothing with your time, you can sit around and watch Season 12 of "Grey's Anatomy" all night. No, this isn't what I am doing ... just kidding, it is, and you want to know why? Because this is my time.

Yes, there are deadlines, responsibilities and we can't just drop this pre-conceived concept of time. But we have the ability to define it however we want to. We can create our time. If you're like me, you like time. I like my time, and it's because I have been able to shape it with things I love doing. I have filled it with people I love. And there's something about having things figured out ahead of time, and on time, that just makes me a happy person. I plan a lot of things, and I hate deadlines because I am the world's most advanced procrastinator, but if they didn't exist then I would never get anything done. And that's just who I am.

But you? You get to decide who you fill your time on this Earth with. You get to spend it doing what you love, because this is your life. It is short, and when it comes to it, you'll feel like time is running out on you. You'll wish you had more of it. As if somehow we could get a package at our front door, saying, "Open this for more time," but we won't. We can spend our whole lives wishing we had more time to do more things or to spend with people we love. But that just isn't the case. We get a certain amount and then it gets taken away.

Whether it is swiped from under us or we see it coming. Time itself has a deadline. And each day we are working closer to it. It is scary, because for the most part this life is a toss up and we don't know when our time will come. And it is also scary that the clock of life runs out on the people that we love. It is awful, but when it is their time to go it really is their time. There are better things that lie ahead, but for now you're on this Earth.

And maybe you'll have kids and get married and those kids will have kids. We can spend time investing in things and people. We can be spectacular, extraordinary. Or we can just be average and normal. And that is OK. Because if you want your legacy to live on beyond your time here on Earth, you're going to be spending your time doing that. Whatever it is, finding cures for diseases or being President. Or you can buy a dog and take care of it with your time, or go to Target for the next big sale on house decorations. Whatever it is, time is at your fingertips, and you can do whatever you want with it.

If there are two things I know: first, that there won't ever be enough of time. Second, that time isn't real. It isn't real until we make it real. Create it. Define it. There's this false thought that we all battle with in our lives, and that is that money is the greatest resource of all, but if you really think about it, time is. Whatever the case may be, it is yours.

"Lost time is never found again" -Benjamin Franklin

Love,

A girl trying to figure out how to use her short time here on Earth.