Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

Friends and Relatives
February 25, 2010

‘Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said, turning to Alice  again.

‘No, I give it up,’ Alice replied: ‘that’s the answer?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said the Hatter.

‘Nor I,’ said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. ‘I think you might do something better with the  time,’ she  said, ‘than waste it in asking riddles that have no  answers.’

‘If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter, ‘you wouldn’t talk  about  wasting IT. It’s HIM.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alice.

‘Of course you don’t!’ the Hatter said, tossing his head  contemptuously. ‘I dare  say you never even spoke to Time!’

‘Perhaps not,’ Alice cautiously replied: ‘but I know I have to beat time    when I  learn music.’

‘Ah! that accounts for it,’ said the Hatter. ‘He won’t stand beating.’

Time is our friend.  Time is not our friend.  Time is relative.

It takes too much time. We have time on our hands.  We have no time.

Time.  What an interesting construct.

I have always been fascinated by Einstein’s theories: the relative passages of time, the time-space continuum, the possibility of time travel.

It is the stuff of science fiction.  And yet we struggle with the reality of time every day.

I know I do.  I get to the end of the day and I wonder where it all went.  Did someone surreptitiously shorten it?  Or did I suffer a brain infarct that caused me to miss some of it?

It seems that there is never enough time.

Many years ago on a colleague’s desk, I saw a  3 x 5 index card.  On it, she had written, “Make Time Happen.”

I always liked that.  It seemed to connote a capacity to control time, to wrestle it (him?) to the ground, to make it stop and do what we want it to do.

And to a certain extent we can.  We can take charge of our time.  We can organize our days well. We can steer clear of the time sinks of email and social media. We can avoid the abyss of television.

We can use our Day-Timers; we can make a daily list of goals; we can delegate; we can apply the Pareto Principle focusing on what yields the highest and best return on our time.

But time still slips by.

We can “buy” some time.  I always liked that concept too.  A photographer friend of mine does this.  He has “bought” a year here and a year there.  He works very hard over a period of time, saving enough money so that he can stop working and focus just on his art.  For him, the time that he has “purchased” is his own.

But time still slips by.

We can live our lives mindfully, consciously, deeply and fully, filling our days with what most feeds our intellects and our souls, aware of the preciousness – and fragility – of each moment.

But time still slips by.

Photography is a particularly brutal reminder of time’s passage.  One of my boys turned 21 last week.  I look into the photograph on my desk that I took of him when he was just 7.  Where did that time go?  I see the picture of my mother on my shelf looking out at me across the years, young and fresh and hopeful, standing next to me when I was all but three.  How cruel time is, I think.

But Time doesn’t much care.

It is the riddle of the Hatter.

This much is clear:  We are all on borrowed time.  There is no time to waste.

And although we have all the time in the world, it isn’t much.

To live into – and cherish – every minute.  That’s the mission.

On rare occasions, Time seems to stop.  Like under the midnight sun, deep in the Alaska Range.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

— Albert Einstein

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