Tempus Fugit

Here's a thought from Seneca which made me think:

"Let us act on this, then, wholeheartedly. Let us cut out all distractions and work away at this alone for fear that we may otherwise be left behind and only eventually realize one day the swiftness of this fleeting phenomena, time, which we are powerless to hold back. Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced forthwith into our own possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters From A Stoic, Letter CVIII

I know I've written on this before, but what struck me in this passage are two things: One is that we truly are powerless to hold back time. We can only preserve pieces of time in our minds, or increasingly in our media - think of a time when you've looked at a photo or video and are reminded of the happy (or not so happy) experience. The experience is captured, but we cannot hold the time that it encapsulated. So much of modern society is intent only hold time back through making our bodies appear as if no time had passed, or extending the periods of time that we enjoyed most. But even these are small lies (but not harmless) that we tell ourselves.

The second thing is his assertion that what flies past must be seized at. The simple fact is that this is true. Given my own inclinations, I would scarcely have any interest (and have) in doing the things that I need to do or should. And time, like an express train, is happy to pass by my little station and continue on. It's only when I grab it and bend it to what needs to be accomplished that it true is useful - although grabbing it and using it is not always equivalent to being busy.

One of my closet fears for many years has been that I was not using my talents and gifts to God's glory. I'm coming to appreciate that not only this true, but it is also true of the time that He has given me and each of us. Some person much wiser than myself has said that God gives us enough time to accomplish what His task is for us. If we only have enough time for that, we can scarcely count on having the luxury of wasting any of it.