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    Time … where does it go?

      It scoots away as if a tiger were in hot pursuit and about to catch it. Where does it go?

        If only I knew, then I would hold the secrets of the universe in my hands.

        “When I have time, I’m going to…” and as one day rushes into another day, you find that time has beaten you again. And yet, you meant to find the time.

        Time…24 hours in each day, 168 hours in each week, 672 hours in each month. That seems to be plenty of time… but where does it go?

        Even the Bible tells us there is a time for all things, but when? How do you decide when there is time enough to go and do what seems necessary? We spend time deciding, then spend more time lamenting that we haven’t chosen wisely enough.

        “I have time on my hands,” the elderly person said. What does one do with time on their hands? Sit and fold those hands in resignation or use them in doing things to spend the time wisely.

        Time, how precious it is. We use it and we abuse it. We each are allotted only so much of it. For a busy person, time passes in a flash. To an idle one, time slowly ticks by, like a watched pot waiting to boil.

        “I don’t have time,” the busy person said, as she rushes by the world.

        “Find somebody that has nothing else to do, with plenty of time,” another said excusing herself from a responsibility she didn’t want to assume.

        Time passes slowly for the young waiting to grow into adulthood and for a child waiting to be old enough to go to school. Time passes slowly for the older one, whose hands have ceased moving fast and whose feet now shuffle slowly with old age. Time … where does it go?

        “She doesn’t let grass grow under her feet,” I said about a busy person. She is a busy one, working and making every second of her life count. She accomplishes much…and yet even she says, “Where did the time go? I had hoped to do this and this before the day was over and there was not enough time.”

        “I’m going to visit them,” one said of the elderly aunt and uncle she knew she needed to see, “When I get the time.”

        The time was never there.

        “I meant to go,” she said, while the uncle was in the hospital,  “But I just never can find the time, maybe tomorrow.”

          But tomorrow never came for the uncle.

          Then she said, “I had to take time off from work today and go to the funeral. After all, he was my uncle. I had to come.”

        She finally found the time. Time is the most precious thing we have. What we do with it reveals much about our nature.

        We find the time to do all the things we really want to do. A fact of human nature. What we “want to do” reveals how our priorities are numbered and in the things we find time to do.

        We still have as much time as our forefathers. Twenty-four hours in every day, 168 hours in every week and 672 hours in each month. Where does it go?

        I wish I knew. I wish I could go to a place and collect all the idle time that had been wasted and give it to somebody with no more time. It isn’t unlimited.  It will run out for each of us, one at a time.

        If you find time on your hands, start giving it away and you will find yourself with limited time, but feel that your time has been well spent. You can’t save it. It ticks right on by, whether you use it or not. How you use it can make much difference in the grand scheme of things.

    Time ticks on…where does it go?

    I wish I knew.

    It passes away…and is gone.

Retired as Associate News Editor, Bob Ann Breland writes a weekly column for The Daily News. You can email her at bobann70@att.net.