Time's All We've Got

Life is just a giant hourglass.  A life starts out full to the brim with opportunity, waiting to be tipped over.  Then, over time, those opportunities fall through the crack, one by one, until there are none left.  I honestly believe that the day we are born we have the potential to be anything.

Yet, our society hardly gives credit for the breadth of talent and ambition we collectively possess.  We tell our kids they can be anything, but do we really believe in those words?  Usually, by anything we mean just one thing: a paying job with a desk and a spinning chair.

The theory goes, if you work long enough, you can retire with plenty of money to finish out your years in peace.  Our current system is merely a series of steps--arbitrary milestones that keep us busy, living life.  Go to school.  Get a job.  Work.  Retire.  And before you know it, time's up.

We tell ourselves that these countless moments spent completing trivial tasks and conforming to the cultural standards of life are worthwhile.  How are we so sure?  How many hours have we spent memorizing terms that we'll never use? How many days have we devoted to preparing for asinine standardized tests? How many years have we wasted pretending that money means happiness?

My final question, then, is why work 65 years to live for 10?  We waste so much valuable time trying to improve our futures that often, we forget about the present completely.  In the end, we only have so many hours on this earth.  You can spend your whole life worrying about what comes next, sure, but the future will always be uncertain.  It's never quite clear how many grains of sand are left in the hourglass.  So, start living...before it's too late.