Time

When I was a kid, time meant nothing to me. I had lots of it. And it felt like I had an unlimited supply. After all, my whole life was ahead of me. I would waste whole afternoons, sometimes whole days, doing absolutely nothing. Daydreaming maybe, or waiting for my favorite cartoon, or counting the days till Christmas. Days and months were long and plentiful.

As I got older, the days became shorter. Christmases came one after another at a rapid pace. The years went by faster. I became more aware of the importance of time. Soon, time became more important than money itself. I jealously regarded my time as a precious commodity.

Knowing that my time was limited, I started rationing it out so that I could use it more wisely. My friends and I realized that our time was very limited. On those days we could be together in one place, we tried to extend and enjoy those instances to the fullest. We knew that the time would come that through circumstances, we would be separated one way or another (which did happen), so there was always this sense of urgency. The ties that bond us together were the respect and importance we gave to our being together, making the most of it while it lasted. In the sense, we stopped wasting time, especially each other's time.

Lately I've become sort of a time miser. A very disagreeable and irritable person to be with. Losing time is as bad or even worse than losing cash. A lost afternoon, or spending several hours on some non-fun activity is especially bad. A bad movie is even worse as you waste both time and money, it's 2 hours and x amount of cash you will never back back. One time I made the mistake of getting suckered into helping a co-worker transport an aquarium from one house to another, which took up my whole saturday. I still cringe when I think of that day I will never get back, a day I could have spent selfishly on myself.

Younger people (and also a lot of older people) don't yet realize the importance of time. They let it pass them by, spending it on matters that are neither important, nor pleasurable to them. A whole life passes by without a second thought or conscious effort to spend it on things you value the most. You end up spending your time on what others feel is important to them, rather than what is important to you. Or you spend it staring at the tv, or long hours in unproductive work, or just idling by waiting for the next day, or the next weekend, or the next year, or the next decade...