In Others' Words: Time

 

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." ~Carl Sandberg, American poet

I have this oversize plastic container that I keep in my bedroom. I'm slowly refilling it with change — an odd assortment of quarters, nickels, dimes, pennies from my jeans pockets or whatever I scavenge from the bottom of my purse. Every few days or so, the coins get dumped into the container.

I've already done this process once, saving change as I counted the days until a family trip to Mexico. When we tallied up the amount in the container I was stunned to discover I'd saved about $200 in a haphazard, casual sort of way.

But what if each one of those coins — each quarter, nickel, dime, penny — represented an hour of my life? There's no tossing an hour into a container so I can pull it out later when life slows down. No hoarding time until I'm older (and hopefully wiser) and won't mis-spend life's currency.

There's only what is … and what was. Only present … and past.

And how quickly the one becomes the other.

In Your Words: What did you spend the coin of your life on this past week? If you had the chance, would you go back and redo any of your transactions?

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