Worrying goes against my belief system, even though I am very good at it. When you get to be my age, self-reflection gets a little bonus time almost every day, and with it, the question of, Did I handle this or that situation well?
Inevitably, I start to wonder what I would change, if I could change time. So I looked up a few sayings and thoughts about time, including my own thoughts, at no extra charge:
- “Time waits for no one.” (Unknown) Verified. It never has waited for me, at least. With the possible exception of algebra class, when it seemed to stand on its head.
- “Time is money.” (Benjamin Franklin) I grew up with this quote by a very industrious and honorable American. Sounds good until you get to the next one.
- “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you can’t get more time.” (Jim Rohn) The annoying thing about that is, when you have a dearth of money, there seems to be an overwhelming surplus of time.
- “Time is on my side.” (Written by Jerry Ragovoy, sung by the Rolling Stones) Must’ve been broke at the time.
- “Lost time is never found again.” (Unknown) With that kind of ominous tone, it’s hard not to worry about time.
- “A person who has not done one half of his day’s work by 10 o’clock runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.” (Emily Bronte) I am not sure if Emily Bronte ever knew an artist of any kind. My day typically STARTS at 10 a.m. and often goes past midnight.
- “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” (Andy Warhol) Speaking of artists, I bet Andy Warhol didn’t have half of a soup can finished by 10 a.m.
- “Do it right the first time and you won’t need a second time.” (Unknown) This one resonates with me. In wood shop, I also learned “measure twice, cut once.”
- “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” (William Penn) Our Founding Fathers certainly had a stern consideration of time, probably because they walked, rode horseback or took month-long journeys by sea to get anywhere.
- “You may delay, but time will not.” (Benjamin Franklin) Efficient. That must be what it takes to get your face on a currency note.
- “The present is the point at which time touches eternity.” (C.S. Lewis) Notwithstanding the time/space continuum, parallel universes, black holes, and all of the intertwined theories related to them, we still have one truth: We are here, in the present.
- “By faithfully working eight hours a day, you may get to be boss, and work 12 hours a day.” (Robert Frost) I was not aware that Robert Frost ever had a corporate job, but it sounds like he got the idea.
- “A stitch in time saves nine.” (Early 18th century wisdom) Get it solved now, before it multiplies into an out-of-hand kind of problem later!
- “Don’t spend your time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” (Coco Chanel) This speaks of Coco Chanel’s well-known determination, and of the folly of wasted time.
- “The trouble is, you think you have time.” (Jack Kornfield) Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. The clock is ticking. Speaking of…
- “Don’t watch the clock, do what it does. Keep going.” (Sam Levinson) Or as Winston Churchill famously said, “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
- “Half our time is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.” (Will Rogers) All these gadgets, electronics, AI platforms and tech advancements are supposed to give me more time. So why do I spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to update all my stuff?
- “The ones who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.” (Jean de La Bruyère) Guilty as charged, but Jean de La Bruyère probably didn’t have an AI robot dogging him to fill in some questions so AI could pretend to be smarter than humans.
My favorite is still Jesus, who said, “Let tomorrow worry about itself.”
Gotta go. Tempus fugit.
