Time

 "With endless time, nothing is special.  With no loss or sacrifice, we can't appreciate what we have."

-Mitch Albom

It has been a rough past few weeks on this ole' body of mine, so my motivation has been severely lacking. I'm hoping I'm on the uphill slope and my motivation to clean my house, wedding plan, and write will return.

For today, I have another book review.  I finished reading The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom, a book on my 2014 Reading List, this week and while I wouldn't say it was as good as some of his other books, I still enjoyed it.

The Time Keeper tells the story of a man named Dor who unknowingly invented something that would change the world forever.  Dor invented time.  His wife becomes ill and he goes off in search of a cure by climbing a tower to the gods.  Instead, the gods put him in a cave for hundreds of years where he is forced to listen to the voices of many begging for more time or wishing time would stop.  Intertwined are the stories of Sarah and Victor.  Sarah is in high school and sees herself as someone others pay no attention to.  Victor has terminal cancer.  Time means so much to these two lives and Dor does everything he can to teach them the true meaning of time.

There were a few paragraphs in the book that really resonated with me.

"Try to imagine a life without timekeeping.
   You probably can't.  You know the month, the year, the day of the week.  There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car.  You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or  a movie.
   Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored.  Birds are not late.  A dog does not check its watch.  Deer do not fret over passing birthdays.
   Man alone measures time.
   Man alone chimes the hour.
   And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures.
   A fear of time running out."

This could not be more accurate or more well-written.  I often wonder what life would be like if I didn't have a watch on my wrist, a phone in my pocket, or a clock on every appliance in my home telling me what time it is.  Time is often the cause of stress in my life, as I'm sure it is in yours as well.  Would my life be different if I just went through the day without paying attention the the hours?  I am positive it would be. Unfortunately, in this day in age our lives depend too much on time.  We have to be at work at this time, we have a meeting at this time, we have to have our bills paid by this day, etc.  Our society has perpetuated this "fear of time running out."

Another paragraph that hit me hard was this one:

"As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart.  People fretted over missed chances, over inefficient days; they worried constantly about how long they would live, because counting life's moments had led, inevitably to counting them down.  Soon, in every nation and in every language, time became the precious commodity."

There is so much truth to this.

"People fretted over missed chances..."

• Every once in a while I think back on missed opportunities, lost friendships, and things I would have done differently all the while knowing there is nothing I can do to change the past.

"over inefficient days..."

• I often wish I would have had more time with both of my grandmothers, more days spent dancing, more days spent living in Lawrence, more time spent with my dearest friends.

Time is a precious commodity.  Ask any mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother, friend, or co-worker. We have all wished for more time at one point or another.  However, without experiencing the end of time we cannot appreciate the present time.  I challenge you today to notice the good around you, to appreciate what you have right now at this very moment, and to remove what Mitch Albom refers to as the "permanent hole in the human heart" brought on by "the sorrow of lost time."