you versus time

Time is one of the most universal concepts that apply to mankind. No matter who you are or where you are, you are subject to the same laws of time as everyone else. Time keeps passing. You can do nothing to stop or influence it, and when it is gone, it cannot be replaced.

As young people, we believe that we have a lot of time. That, there is so much time available to us, we can do whatever it is that we want to do and achieve whatever it is that we set our minds to.

If time is currency, every young person is considered a billionaire. We are the higher echelon in the time economy.

The irony, however, is that we are somehow always looking for free time. No matter how much time we are made to feel as if we have, especially in relation to the rest of our lives, it is never enough. There is the frustrating realisation that there are some things you want to do, that you just cannot seem to make out time for.

You have felt it, and I have too. You want to learn a new skill, language or musical instrument but somehow, you can’t even manage to find the time to do it. What’s even worse? You can’t really place a finger on where the time goes.

Yes, you have your basic routine but you feel like somewhere in between should be more time to do things but somehow, there isn’t that time. The day starts and before you know it, you are rolling in for the night again. One endless cycle.

Here are some things to note about your time;

1. There’s no free time anywhere: Time is not some cup lying on a shelf somewhere, empty and waiting to be filled up. It’s not an empty room in an apartment waiting for you to come in and do whatever. Time is never really free. It always gets used up somehow.
2. You’re using all of the time available to you: Young people like you and I are terrible at realising this, but we are using up all of the time we have. All 24hours of it – just like everyone on earth. Whether we’re using it productively, is another thing entirely.
3. You’re in control of your time: Yes, you. Not Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, but you. Not even your job or family can take up time that you do not surrender to them. If anything is taking up your time, odds are, you’re letting it.
4. You can make the time: A lot of the time we supposedly do not have ultimately gets spent on really trivial things. I know it, you know it too. By choosing to be more accountable for how you spend your time, you can greatly improve your overall experience for yourself.

The easiest way to do this is to track your time. This probably sounds rather tedious, but hear me out. How much of your day can you actually account for? How much of your time passes without you even knowing where it went?

It’s sad that we get taught how to read the clock as early as in primary school, but much focus isn’t given to teaching us how to appropriately spend our time. We don’t learn how to be accountable for the things we give our time to and in the age of social media and mobile phones, this is more important than ever.

We rob ourselves of precious, irreplaceable time – our youth, even – when we live without control of our time. Don’t let time pass without knowing how or why. Try to always be in conscious control of what you allot your time to.

When we wait for time to somehow miraculously clear up to achieve what we need to do, we get into a procrastination trap that we might never escape because of how insidious it is. That course you want to take, that instrument or language you want to learn, will always seem to slip out of your grasp if you keep waiting for time to free up.

Choose to be accountable to yourself for how you spend your time. You are young and time is one of your greatest assets. Don’t let it dip.