That Unstoppable Force: Time

Time never stops.

I was struck with this reality a few days ago. It may seem painfully obvious, but hear me out.

I've always known that time is continuous. Sometimes it seems as if it has stopped, or is moving terribly slow, other times it seems as if it zips by, leaving us in the dust, wondering what happened.

It also seems to be contrary. When we wish it to hurry up, it crawls by. When we want it to slow down, it feels as if it moves twice as fast.

Despite this, it always moves forever at the same speed. Sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, twenty-four hours to a day, thirty days to a month, twelve months to a year.

And all of it goes along at the same pace, no matter how we bed it otherwise.

Why?

Well, of course there is the obvious reason: It is impossible for it to move at a different pace than it is set at.

But also, if we were able to stop or speed up time to suit ourselves, where would we be?

What if we came to a boring time in our life, a lull, and decided to fast-forward? Those lulls are there for us to prepare ourselves. If we find that we seem to be stuck in the lull, there is most likely something that needs to be changed. Perhaps a brave step that needs taken, perhaps a relationship to be made or changed, perhaps a lifestyle altered. Those times that seem to be useless space are never useless. They, just as everything else in this life, have a meaning. The meaning may not be clear, but it is always there.

Similarly, what if there was an imminent unpleasant ordeal, and we simply said, “No! I don't want to go through that! Clock, time, stop moving!” Where would we be?

Stuck forever in one place because of our fear. Never able to move on and let the unpleasant things happen along with the pleasant, never able to let those things mold us. We would never be able to experience the things that come after. We would never be able to live and carry on our adventures, because adventures are notoriously uncomfortable at times.

Instead, we would be stuck in one place, like a fledgling terrified to take that first flight, for fear of falling. Like a toddler refusing to take those first steps, because he or she will fall eventually.

Thankfully, time is not our own to command. It marches on, never stopping for breath, never missing a beat.

But many of us waste time, disregarding the slow times, trying to make things go faster while missing the whole point of the lull.

Many let fear stop the clock of their own lives. Time is still going, but they've taken the batteries out of their clock and refuse to take the pain that may come with growth. We refuse to become who we should be.

Don't let your clocks top ticking. Time will continue on whether you're ready or not.

In the shadow of the Greatest Shinobi

~MDS