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Contemplations upon a new year's dawning
John A. Small, The Capital-Democrat
I almost hate to admit it – seems like there’s always someone around to tease me mercilessly whenever I do – but there’s a line from a Star Trek movie that always comes to mind around this time of year.
It’s a line spoken by Captain Jean-Luc Picard at the conclusion of the 1994 film Star Trek Generations: "Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey that reminds us to cherish every moment because they’ll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we live it."
How true those words are. One inevitability as the years march on and our yesterdays start outnumbering our tomorrows is that we come to realize we cannot, no matter how hard we may try, stop time. We may ignore it, we may thumb our nose at it, we may color our hair or use this cream or that or inject strange substances in our faces in an attempt to smooth out our wrinkles and pretend. But the sad truth for those who insist on pursuing such efforts is that it ultimately doesn’t matter. Time marches on, and there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it, slow it down, turn it off, adjust it or temporarily detour it.
And we also cannot bring it back. Once it is gone, it is gone. That half-hour you spent gossiping on the phone or vegetating in front of the television or quietly cursing a neighbor or co-worker or relative for some perceived wrong you feel they committed against you is 30 minutes of your life you will never, ever, ever get back. Kiss it goodbye, pilgrim, because it’s gone forever.
And if Yesterday is lost forever, Tomorrow is at best an uncertainty. We can make plans, we can write out "to do" lists, we can promise our spouses or our children or our parents that we’ll "do it tomorrow." But as my mother has been known to say (and she’s been quoted by so many), "Tomorrow never comes."
I always used to wonder what she meant by that when I was a kid. Oh, I understood the game-like conundrum some people make out of it – "Tomorrow never comes because when it gets here it’s today" – but the more serious message that lay at the heart of the comment always seemed to elude me.
Until that day I came to school and learned that a classmate I had talked to just the day before, a friend with whom some of us were planning to get together with that afternoon, had been killed in a car wreck the night before.
Then I got it. There will be days that come after today – but none of us have any guarantees that we will have the opportunity to experience any of it.
I don’t mean to be a downer, but there are things we all have to consider at some point in our lives; ignoring it won’t make it go away, but confronting it can be both enlightening and liberating if we allow ourselves to do so. Especially now, at the beginning of a new year.
This time each year we turn to the first page of the new calendar and endeavor to glean some sort of insight as to what the new year may have in store for us. And the tendency is to look at the year as something tangible, something solid like the coffee cup we hole in our hands – a finite block of 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds. But how often do we view that finite block of time as what it truly is: a gift which we have done little if anything to deserve?
If I’ve learned nothing else in my 41.5 years – and I’ll be the first to admit there’s a great deal I don’t know – I have learned this much; Time is one of our most precious possessions. We can waste it. We can worry over it. We can spend it on ourselves. Or, as good stewards, we can invest it – in our friends, our families, our neighborhoods, our world. A wise man once said we should endeavor to leave the world a better place than we found it; you can’t do that vegetating in front of the TV or gossiping on the phone or some silly Internet chat room.
The New Year’s holiday should be as much a time for reflection as it is for celebration. As you look back on the past year and all that has taken place in your life, remember the admonitions of a lay minister I once knew: to recall each past experience for the good that has come of it, and for the knowledge you have gained; to remember the efforts you have made and the goals you have reached; to remember the love you have shared and the happiness you have brought, the laughter, the joy, the hard work, and the tears.
The new year is full of time – but it sure goes by in a hurry. As the 31,536,000 seconds that make up 2005 tick away into infinity, will you be tossing time out the window, or will you make every one of them count?
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