Continuing this unorthodox introduction to time I will invite you to follow me in sharing a real experience familiar to most of us when we do not have a cup or a glass with which to carry water. In such a case we usually cup our palms and fingers and try to hold some water in them. I don’t have to say, as I assume you already have experienced it, that sooner or later the water will slip through our cupped fingers and palms and will be lost.
James Joyce’s remark in the Ulysses is most appropriate in this instant, "Can’t bring back time. Like holding water in your hand."
Carry the analogy over to the handling of time and you will end up agreeing with Benjamin Franklin that "lost time is never found again" and, as he wrote in the Advice to a young tradesman, "remember that time is money."
Franklin’s advice bears significant resemblance to the laconic statement of Chilon (Χίλων or Χείλων) of Sparta, one of the 7 sages of ancient Greece, who lived in the 6th century B.C. and suggested ‘χρόνου φεόδου’ meaning "time should be used sparingly, with prudence".
More recently, just a few decades ago, Alan Lakein in his best-selling book "How to control your time" which was initially published in 1973 and with many subsequent editions has sold over 3 million copies, wrote that "Time=Life, therefore waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life."
In his Fellowship of the Ring J.R.R. Tolkien has suggested that "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.". And surely, I would add, remembering that unlike money or other commodities "time cannot be saved and made available for later use", not forgetting or overlooking Edward Young’s advice in ‘Night Thought’ that "Procrastination is the thief of time".
"Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life" suggested the Persian mathematician-astronomer, philosopher, poet Omar Khayyam and he treated past, present and future as the three dimensions of time in a poetic manner in his Rubaiyat.
Take care of your time!
See'ya!