Passage of Time

Today we cannot live our life without knowing the time. We create a device called the clock to measure the passage of time. A day’s time consists of 24 hours and 365 days make up a year. A person’s life expectancy is around 80 years. 20 years ago, it was 60 years. 20 years into the future, it will be 100 years.

1) The first 12 years is called the childhood whence people explore and wonder,

2) The next 6 years is called the teenage whence people are at the mercy of their urges,

3) From 18 to 24 years of age, it is called the young adult whence people are searching the way of life,

4) For the next 36 years, it is called the adulthood whence people work for a living and raise a family,

5) People retire at age 60 and become senior citizens whence they try to take care of their worn out body to live out the rest of their life.

A person’s journey of life is filled with good and bad times, happy and sad times, exciting and boring times. Without time as a reference, a person’s life will not be meaningful and purposeful.

Time of the Day

People divide the day into 3 parts, 8 hours each. Normally, a person sleeps from 11pm to 7am, works from 8am to 5pm, and has a family time from 6pm to 10pm. A person is normally wakened up by the alarm clock in the morning to get ready for the task of the day. A person normally goes to work in a place with other people to accomplish a common objective and gets pay according to the times one spent there. After a normal 8 hours on the job, the person gets to go home to spend times in leisure with the family. After that, it is bedtime whence the routine will repeat itself for 5 days. The 6^th and 7^th days are normally times for house cleaning, grocery buying, and outdoor physical/social activities. 7 days are called a week whence people can get refreshed and energized to be ready for another 7 days of routines. However, exceptions may occur due to sickness, holiday, vacation, or natural disaster, etc.

Time of the Month

At the end of 30 days (called a month), various bills are due, rent or mortgage is needed to be paid. It is time to balance the budget and to readjust the spending plan. Every 3 months, the weather changes and people adjust the daily routines accordingly. People’s diet changes as certain fruits and vegetables become more available. People’s physical activities change as people spend more times outdoor when it is sunny and warm, and more times indoor when it is rainy and cold. It takes 9 month for a baby to be born from the time of conception.

Time of the Year

After 12 months or 365 days, a person normally will review how one is doing financially, physically, and one’s personal goals.

1. With today’s greater emphasis on preventive medicine, a person is encouraged to take an annual physical checkout. It is done not only to find out potential hidden illness but also to be educated on how to live a healthier life style.

2. In peaceful and prosperous times, people not only live for the near future but also plan for the far future when the retirement time comes. A person has a myriad of investment vehicles to choose from to achieve financial security. However, they all have risked and needed to be reviewed when the contract is due annually.

3. People have life-time dreams or goals and have mapped out ways to attain them. The end of the year is a good time to check the progress and make the necessary realistic changes.

Time of Life

Even though a person’s life consists of mostly routines, every now and then, one has to face and solve uncommon problems. The problems may be more or less the same. Since the person and the circumstance are different, the impact and the result are different accordingly. A person’s lifetime is defined by the time span between the person’s time of birth and time of death. It is a time-line that everyone has to follow. Even though the starting and the ending moments are the same, the journey of life is all different with each person leaving a unique track that crisscross the paths of the family members, friends, and the people who happen to be in the way. A person’s time on Earth is a mere moment considering that life started 3.5 billion years ago. The human ancestor’s life, the Homo sapiens, started in Africa 4 million years ago. Our civilization has been 7000 years old. How a person lived is completely dictated by the thin slice of time that the person happens to be in:

• In a time of war, a person has to put one’s dream on hold and learn to cope to live in a world of destruction, despair, and death,

• In a time of economic downturn, a person learns to cut back on household expenses and seek more frugal recreational venues,

• In a time of prosperity, a person can indulge one’s cravings and be more daring in pursuing risky ventures, etc.

  The above events are shaped by the collective forces that we have few control of – urge of hunger, lust for power, obsessions with hatred, love, jealousy, etc. All that a person can do is to follow one’s instinct to play the game of life to its bitter end, happy end, murderous end, or glorious end in one’s allotted time. A person may wish to prolong the good times, shorten the bad times, go back in time to fix mistakes, and or travel ahead of time to know an event’s outcome; one will come to the term that time ticks away in its own unstoppable and unchangeable pace since the beginning of time.